The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1895-01-10
TREASON REBUKED.

The abandonment of the attempt to pre-
vent the Inauguration of Governor Budd
by revolutionary methods signifies that
politicians have come to their senses. AS
much may be said of NJ. G. Haley's back
down from his reasonable enGeavor to
hold an office to which the returns showed
that another man had been elected. II
both these cases the sturdy common-sens e
of the people warned thu conspirators that
they must not go too far, and they took
water.
Defeated candidates for Office constantly
complain that they have been counted out.
1t is the oldest of old stories. Cases have
occurred in which their conten ion has
been founded on fact. Election officers
have often been negligent or corrupt, and
have credited their friends with votes
which had been cast for their enemies.
The law provides complete though
tedious remedy for such wrongs. And
such provision was intended to prevent
and should prevent any office-holder from
taking the law into his own hands and
undertaking to right himself by consti-
tuting himself a board of revision. When
the returns, signed by the proper officers,
Office he shopld be suffered to enter into
peaeable possession of 1t, though his cleo
ton was comprised by fraud. The remedy
for those who are injured by the fraud is
through the courts or the Legislature. No
man in this country can be suffered to sit
as court and jury in his own case.
1t is different in the Spanish American
countries. The ancient fueros, which
were the safeguards of liberty in old
Spain, were never imported TO America
the Spanish colonists grew up in ignorance
of the practice of representative govern
ment. When it was thrust upon them
they chafed under the rule of self-control
which it involved. Defeated candidate
refused to submit to the verdict of the
judges of election and appealed from the
ballot to the bullet Thus an electio n
usually preluded an appeal to arms, in
which the strongest party took the offices.
whether 1t had received majority of
votes or not The result of this was
chronic anarchy. With few intervals of
peace and order. the States of Central
America. South America and Mexico have
been ruled by the sword for nearly sew
enty years, and there has been no such
thing as public credit staple Industry,
commerce, or national progress.
The recent plots of Dan Burns and a
coterie of would-be leaders of the Repub-
lican party. and of ex County Gle k
Haley, have been apparently designed to
inaugnrate a similar state of things here.
The conspirators have succeeded in n 9TH
ing except to show that they are not
worthy TO be called American citizens
They do not understand the underlying
principles of American institutions, and
they deserve to be DISTINGUISHED by a
popular fiat. II such men, at any future
election. should be advanced to positions
of power, they could not be trusted. There
is no saying what they might not do to
break down the free and orderly govern
ment under which we live. They are out
of place under the American flag; they
ought to go and live In the countries
where elections are farce and Office goes
10 him who can muster the largest number
of bayonets.