The record-union., 1892-08-03
A PAPER LION. +"
A San Franciscan Talks About the
Traffic Association,s Politics.

A San franciscan Talks About the
Traffic Associations Politics.
| Arthur McEwen. in his San Francisco
| letter to the Meas Of this city, thus relates
what practical San Franciscan recently
! said to him:
The Traffic Association is one of the
! heaviest loads the Democrats have to
stagger under in this fight. They were
| so anxious to catch the support and votes
| OF the San Francisco merchants that they
! jumped right in without thinking and III
their platform granted everything the
association asked for. What has been the
result up TO date? Did the merchants re-
spond by throwing up their hats and
cracking the armament with grateful
cheers for the Democracy? Hardly. The
alacrIty OF the Democracy just astoniShed
/ the association. The merchants instead
OF approaching what had been done for
them by one of the great political parties
OF the State, had their heads swelIed. If
any member of tho Traffic Association,
/ who was not Democrat before, has been
! brought over to the Democratic party by
| the action i'll Fresno, he has not let the
fact become known.
1.-The faculty with which the merchants
got their way at Fresno induced them to
! believe that it would be an easy matter
similarly to get the Endorsement of the
( W,
! Prohibitionists, and, l suppose, of the
! Women's Christian Temperance Union
and the Salvation Army. They are I'M
der the impression that nobody would
care to refuse anything they asked, SO
emlnently and respectable and puissant
a body OF leading citizens do they con-
| slider themselves. Having determined to
go into politics, they had neither the
courage nor the sense to face the disad-
| VantageS as well as reap the advantages of
! that course. They wanted to gain every
| thing and risk nothing. Every body was
/ to fight for them and they were to fight
| for every body except themselves They
ment and excited the contemptuous
amusement of every man who under
stands anything about politics.
The Democracy would like to unload,
| but can't. The party, having declared it
self, would now like to make show of
| keeping its engagements by making a
rafting railroad light independently al
| together of the Traffic Association. That
cannot be done, however, since the plat
| form is saturated with Traffic Association
Like good many other folks, have been
| trying to lind out how many members
this association has. But this information
is mighty carefully guarded. And no
! wonder. | am told on good authority
/ that it embraces just about twenty mer-
chants. and if there is one of them that
wouldn't desert his associates and go over
! TO the railroad on q promise of a little
special favor or two, he wouldn't be a San
! Francisco merchant.
The association is a paper lion, and
has steadily dwindled in popular esteem
until now there are very few in this town
who consider it of any political conse-
! quence, and those who hoped from it some
action that would benefit the city's lam
! gushing trade have given up discouraged.
| In the interior it is the worst kind of a
! hoodo. You can't convince the people
there that the San Francisco merchants
have anything but their own interest in
view, or that they wouldn't cheerfully