The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1891-08-15
THE BooDLERs BAFFLED.

The little evening paper which makes its
living by printing the municipal reports for
nothing appears to be scared by the clamor
aroused by the recent attempt of its hackers
to rob property-owneIs in the Western Adj
ditOn. 1t crawls, and after stating with its
customary Indifference 10 truth, that the op-
position to the steal arises from the prefer
ence of property-owners for macadam over
bituminous rock pavement, it gloomily OBJ
serves that property owners are acting within
their rights. Its accomplice in the plot is
made Of Steiner stuff. The Chronicle is not
dismayed at being detected in a plot to tax
property-Owners for the benefit of the paw
ing ring. The proprietor of that sheet has
Peen so often caught that a new detection
does not distress him. He nails his Doodle
flag to the mast and bids defiance to the
public. He rails at citizens who object to
dividing their property with the boodlers as
men who object to laying any pavement
whatever" He charges them with "main-
tanning a nuisance" and in the face of the
fact that twenty-seyen out Of thirty of
the proposed paving contracts have been
stopped by protests from property-owners
coolly declares that "a majority of decent
people" in the Western Addition do not OBJ
ject to the proposed bituminous rock poul-
tice. The decent people" must be much
obliged TO him.
The game OF the Doodle ring has been
blocked for the present in spite of Superin-
teDdent Gilleran, the Directors of the paw
ing companies and their newspaper allies
When it next comes up the people whom it
proposed to yictimize will probably be on
the alert to lay it out again. In the mean
time it will be well for people to realize the
frtFa INN
raid which has just been defeated.
The plot was organized by the San Fran
cisco Paving Company, in which boss is
said to be chief owner and manager, organ
lied last April, with the following Board of
Directors: James A. Harvey, Al Raisch,
w. c. Raisch and two others.
Unfortunately for them, and luckily for
the public, the game seemed so promising
that its authors set no bounds to their.rapae-
Ity. If they had gone about the Job dis
creetly, secured the assent of some prop-
erty-owners, and begun by trying to pave
three or four blocks, their enterprise might
have attracted no attention. But they got
recommendation for the paving of thirty
blocks at once, involving an expenditure of
perhaps 100000. This enormous OUTLAY
staggered prUperty-owners. Their indigna-
ton was increased by the Indifference and
false statements which their circumstances
encountered when they visited the Street
Department to inquire into the matter. By
common. consent they broke out into re-
bellion, and filed protests which blocked the
game.
The life of those protests is only six
months, and next February the fight will
have to be renewed. But booders once
hoored rarely come to the scratch a second
time In fighting shape. Every one now
knows the true inwardness of the plot.
Everybody understands that it was scheme
10 fleece prorerty-owners for the benefit of
paving company owned principally by
CrimmlDs. 1t takes good deal of courage
to set public opinion at defiance by putting
through job engineered under such ans
pices. PropeIty-owners in this city are long
suffering But there is a point beyond
which 1t is not safe to try their patience.
The riDgsters boast that they have the law
on their side, and that they will CARY their
point in epite OF the complaints of those who
object TO be robbed. But the law has pos
sibilities which are not known to their phil
osophy. When it comes to the point law
will probably be found to protect a citizens