The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1891-12-27
PRACTICAL
POLITICS.
EX-BOSS Buckley Interviewed
in London.
He Tells What There Is in Politics as a
Business.
His Opinion OF HearSt-An Uld8YelOped
Feather Headed Fellow Who
Bangs His Hair.
Special 10 THE MORNING CALL..

London TO New 40rk:
THE INTERVIEW.
NEW YORK, Dec. ga Sun special from
London says: Christopher A. Buckley, the
famous blind politician of San Francisco,
a mystery, arrived here on Wednesday
night from New York on his way to Wies-
baden. Buckley is at the Victoria Hotel.
| He consented to an interview with the Sun
! correspondent and gave most remarkable
account of the state OF affairs in California.
CALIFORNIA POLITICS.
When asked about the San Francisco
trouble. the blind man smiled and said:
| Us little party fight; that's all. We've
got lot Of reformers in San Francisco who
arc ready to reform Heaven and earth. pro-
vided they get office. II they are not per-
mtted to run things, they kick, which is
quite natural. The question is whether the
! Democratic party in San Francisco is to be
run by an ex-Cnief Justice of the Supreme
! Court, a reformed stock-broker. or an unde-
yeloTed young man who bangs his hair and
| puts up for a Newspaper, or whether the
| party is to be run by me. The Indifference
| OF citizens is such that politics has every
| show there. Public spirit is so much
weaker force than private ambition that
managing man has good game to play if
! he has got brains enough to play 1t. This
newspaper, which has got plenty of money
behind II, but is not successful, makes a lot
of talk about public interest in order to in
| crease its circulation. 1t has always been
with me when ii could make anything by
it, but now it thinks to fool the public by
| fighting me. That's the way we do things
out West" And Buckley laughed.
THE GRAND JURY
81 left San Francisco in September to take
trip over the Canadian Pacific, and then
go TO Wiesbaden. which place did me lot
of good last year. l went to Montreal to
make visit of two months. After l left,
William T. Wallace. an ex-Chief Justice of
! the Supreme Court in San Francisco, took
the law into his own hands, called a Grand
Jury of his own, and had Inc indicted for
bribery. 1t seemed that a man named
Mayne had got a street-car franchise from
the Board Of Supervisors. On his books
was an entry of $50 shares to be delivered
10 Buckley and Rainey-Fire Commissioner
Sam Rainey. The Grand Jury had been in
session for weeks before l came away, but
said nothing to me. The charge was not
true, legally or any other way, | having
been in Europe at the time. The whole thing
was absurd. If Wallace had been backed
by honest popular indignation l should
have had nothing to say. But l put Wal
lace on the Superior bench. This ex-Chief
! Justice begged me to put him back into pol
itics, which l did. Last year he wanted
the nomination for the Supreme bench. l
refused for several reasons.
HIS OPINION OF HEARST.
Zone was that the party would not have
him. When l refused he was bitterly
angry, and swore in the presence of the Su-
perior Judges at San Jose that he would
put NE in jail. This he tried to do in select
ing the Grand Jury, by overriding the law
as he had explicitly laid 1t down himself
when Supreme Judge. don't think man
of this kind will ever reform city to any
great extent. The same thing is true of the
newspaper. whose editor is good enough
young fellow, but feather-headed He is
handled, however, by men who are not
good enough for reformers. This Young
fellow owes me every possible debt of graf
itude. l made his father United States SEN
atOr. l got nothing for it,
THE LAST LEGISLATURE.
Being questioned about politics in the
State, he said: "They had a Republican
Legislature in the State and a Republican
| Board of Supervisors in the city last winter
who simply lost their heads. The Legsla-
ture was called The Legislature of Thou
sand Scandals Twenty f our Senators
pooled issues and had an agent named Fay
lor. They made about 5000 apiece, bu: re-
fused to pay Taylor his commission. He
then turned around and sued them in open
court for it."
This was too much for the gravity of the
Enslishmen, who laughed heartily. They
seemed to think they were hearing a fairy
| tale.
| BRIBERY AND THE BALLOT.
What do you think of bribery? Can it
| be put down in politics ?"
Buckley did not answer Immediately He
evidently regarded the question as diff
cult one. He finally said:
! Il can only answer by saying what has
often been said, that you can never get
| pure politics till you have the united action
| OF majority OF honest, pubc-spirited citi-
zens. Until you get that, all corporate in
| terests, all heavy interests, in fact, w il
simply be compelled to protect themselves
against adverse legislation.
The fact is" said Buckley, "the ballot
is more dangerous thing when given to
everybody than the people imagine. The
| people are Indifferent to their political
duties, and the result is a system of prac-
tical politics in every great American city,"
POLITICS is HIS BUSINESS
am willing to leave the thing to the
! people My business is politics, and they
| say politicians are public enemies, but how
Is 1t that San Francisco pays less taxes than
any other large city in the Union? How is
1t that after fifteen years OF nearly continu-
GUS Democratic administration, San Fran
cisco does not owe one dollar? How is it
that the City Hall Commission, where mill.
ions have been spent, has never had charge
OF any kind made against it? How is it that
| when L could have put men on that commits
| sion who would have wasted or stolen hum
dreds OF thousands of dollars, always
nominated, with the help of my friends,
men who were unexreptionable?
left Montreal November Goth, went to
New York and received news on Monday
last week that the Supreme Court of Cali
fornla had declared Wallace's Grand Jury
| illegal. citing against him his own previous
decision in similar matter also heard
that the papers had quit, but don't know if
this be tue and don't care"
A NOMINATION WITHHELD.
| what about the reformed stock broker ?"
| he Is eX-State Senator Jerry Lynch. He
started out to down mo all by himself, be-
cause he loved the dear people The
trouble with Jerry is he wanted the nomi-
nation for Congress and didn't get it. The
| party would not have him to begin with.
You must understand l am not alone in
party management but simply little more
prominent than other men who lead the
Democratic party. There was a man in
San Francisco, Joseph L. Schmidt, who
charged before a committee of the San
Francisco Stock Exchange that when the
firm of Callaghan & Lynch failed for $780,
600 there were some thousands absent from
the assets, which looked bad for Jerry.
Schmidt came to me and warned me that if
Jerry was nominated for Congress he would
| certainly be defeated, consequently he