The record-union., 1892-01-09

reason reform at first wears the aspect of
revolution. The one must not be mis-
taken for the other. Buckley, in pointing
out the cause for the admittedly corrupt
condition of government in California,
has with intellectual clearness hereto
fore unsupported in him, indicated a
remedy. He declares that under the
proper guard the rights and liberties of
the citizens would not have been stolen.
He declares in effect that purity of public
government can be maintained only by
the vigilance of the upright and honest
elements of society; and he indicates
with perfect clearness what should be
apparent to every mind, that when poll
ties is handed over to the venaI elements
of society, the government proceeding
out of such politics viii be venal and
corrupt.
The recent effort in San Francisco to
purify government in California by
substituting judicial usurpation for cor
ruption was an appeal from one wrong
to another. Whether the intention was
honest or dishonest is not an element of
this consideration. If it was honest, the
effort was fraught with worse conse-
quences than if it had been otherwise.
1t was an attempt to overthrow the Judi
cial system of the State, and establish in
its place judiciary with the extraor-
binary power Of trying all persons ac-
cused before the courts by packed
Grand Juries, packed petit juries, or peri
udiced courts. 1t substituted a grotesque
judicial absolutism for calm, dispassion-
ate, judicial fairness. Under the re-
quirement of law and the rules of
court, a Grand Jury was to be drawn
from the jury box into which had been
placed the names of citizens-selected as
the law directs-by the clerk of the
court 1t ruthlessly set this rule aside,
selecting an old eX-Sheriff and politician
of one of the counties of Nevada, and
making him the embodiment of the con-
science of the court; it called into exist
ence a Grand Jury, the personnel of
which was the individual selection of the
court itself The venire included law
yers, exempt from jury duty, and doctors
equally exempt. This Grand Jury was
charged by the court in words amounting
to a direction to find indictments against
certain persons mildly designated by
classiications, but designated with suffi-
cIent clearness to indicate specifically
who they were. In anticipation of the
indictments it would find, petit jury to
try these indictments was selected in the
same manner. Thus the court packed a
Grand Jury to find indictments and a
petit jury to try them, and assigned to
itself the trial of the cases growing out of
these extraordinary proceedings. The
success of this accomplishment in the di-
rection of revolution, misnamed reform,
was checked by calm, clear and con-
vincing judicial decision handed down
by the highest tribunal of the State. The
people of California were disappointed
that what they believed to be an effort in
the direction of reform had failed.
That there shall be no misunderstand-
ing of our position in this matter, we re-
peat our undisguised sympathy with the
success of true reform in the direction
indicated. More than this, we pledge our
hearty cooperation to genuine reform
of the demoralized condition of govern
ment in this State. But the attempt to
reform abuses by the establishment of
new ones is folly from which we have
happily escaped. Out of this arises an
opportunity for genuine reform, and to
that result the earnest efforts of the peo-
pie of California should now be directed.
Nothing, in our opinion, could have been
more unfortunate than the success of the
packed Grand Jury experiment. With
the Indictment of few obscure offenders
the public would have been satisfied. but
the source of the evil would have re-
manned as potent as ever. It is a phe-
nomenon attending all reform that its
earliest defeats prove eventually to be its
greatest victories. The evils of which the
people of California to-day complain can
not be cured by judicial proceedings. They
will remain as long as virtue and intelli-
gence relegate government to ignorance
and vice. The first step in true reform
viii be the restoration to the people of
the different counties of the State of Cali
fornia Of the right of local self-govern-
ment, of which they have for the last
twenty-five years been deprived. Mem
bers Of the Legislature have been selected,
not by the people of the counties they
were to represent, but by the representa-
tiyes of corporate influence and political
State organizations. So long as nominal
ing conventions in the counties of this
State are formed by men who make
business of politics, such conventions
will respond to the demands of
people who have designs on government.
Members OF the Legislature must be
selected from among men who are truly
representative of the commercial and