The record-union., 1892-05-09
CAMINETTI AND GEARY.

CAMINETTI AND GEARY.
Mr.. Congressman Geary has exposed
this State to shame, and inflicted upon it
humiliation. His assault in the House
upon his colleague, Mr.. Caminetti, on
Thursday, was much more than in bad
taste-it more resembled the code of the
barroom than of the halls of national
deliberative assembly. 1t does not mat
ter so much that Mr.. Geary sank himself
TO low level and demonstrated his in
capacity for his position, which, if it re-
quires any quality more than another,
demands level headedness; but it does
matter that California should be humili-
ated in the eyes of the nation and her
vital interests imperiled by the hot tenn
per and shallow judgment of a represent
ative whose horizon of duty appears to be
limited by the bounds of the district he
represents.
Mr.. Geary asked for contract appro-
priaton of 81, ,75O, 600 in excess of $500, 900
set aside in the bill for this year, for
Humboldt Bay, in the river and harbor
appropriation schedule. When the item
was reached in Committee of the Whole,
Mr.. Caminetti, who has very much
broader view of the State of California
and its legitimate claims, moved that the
sum of $780, 900 be substituted for 81, 1885,
600.
This was eminently proper. Mr.. Cami-
netti knew, as do all Californians who
have kept themselves informed upon the
Congressional policy in matters of this
order, that appropriations are made upon
something of an apportionment plan to
the various States. Not all needs are
supplied at once, but an attempted bal
ance is kept between the claims of the
States for Federal appropriations and the
amounts disbursed in each State.
Now, if Congress votes the s., ,750, 900
asked for by Mr.. Geary the danger is that
1t will be at the expense of other appro-
priations in this State. That there are
other needs infinitely of more pressing
character and greater interest than those
OF Humboldt Bay is an undisputed fact.
Without denying at all the wisdom of
conserving northern harbor interests,
the greater problem of saving the navi-
gable streams of the State from utter
ruin by prompt, early and most ener-
getic action is presented.
1t is one that will not wait, and
that the longer it is delayed the more
costly it becomes. Now, to crafty Mr..
Geary's desire means simply to put the
interests of the navigable rivers to the
stake. In other words, Mr.. Geary was
endeayoring, irrespective of other inter
ests in his State, to ''hog it alp for his
own district. The sensible, fair-dealing
people of that district will not thank him
for putting them in this attitude of un-
fairness to the rest of the State.
So, too. the mining interests of the
State are well nigh paralyzed; largely
they are suspended to-day because their
prosecution cannot be had without in
been neglected and left unprotected by
the Federal Government.
Mr.. Caminetti has stood not only the
friend of the river and IN lining interests,
but more, he has stood for exact Justice
for them, which is even a loftier plane to
occupy than that of mere sympathy.
These three interests, conservation of the
drainage channels provided by nature
for the greatest valleys of the national
domain, the preservation of the navipa-
bility of the free highways of the State.
and the restoration of the mining indus
try, to the prosecution of which the Ma
ton is so deeply indebted these are in
separably related to the whole State and
every interest in it. These interests Mr..
Caminetti has intelligently, vigorously
and in dignified manner presented to
Congress, and with such success thus far
as has not been achieved before.
1t was not, therefore, possible for him
to sit quietly by and see the whole scheme
of promoting these interests toppled 10
the ground, that Mr.. Geary might be
glorified in his own district 1t was clear
to Mr.. Caminetti, as it must be to every
man not blinded to State interest by local
prejudice, that the grant of large ap-
preparation of the kind asked by Mr..
Geary viii be at the expense of the greater
interest named. 1t was, therefore. an at
tempt by Mr.. Geary TO use Congress for
the robbery of the rest of the State, for the
benefit of single harbor; it was an effort
on his part to legislatively fileh from The