The San Francisco call., 1895-07-15
VERY UNsAvoRY RECORD.
a Community Slow to Believe
Ill Is at Last Con-
VinCed.
HOW THE LAW WAS BROKEN.
The Penalties Provided - Citizens
Are Impatient to See 1t
indicated.

The people are rapidly coming to an IN
derstanding of the high-handed and law
less methods which obtain with the major
itv of the present Board of Supervisors.
They have been in Office now just six
months. and have already made record
for themselves that retires Christopher
Buckley's Solid Nine from its position as
the sscrookedest board in the history OF the
City"
The Southern Pacific Railroad Com
panv's Solid Eight occupy that unenvlable
pedestal, and will serve as the criterion
and precedent in such things now and
hereafter.
Bu. there will be this difference in the
story as it is, told in the months and years
to come: 1t will be related how the Solid
Eight were stopped in their lawless course
bv the peremptory hand of the people.
For times have changed. The people
are in no mood to allow their representa-
tives to openly, defantly and repeatedly
sell them out to the corporations; to feel
their chains being drawn tighter about
them through license granted to the cor
porations; to see the burdens OF taxation
Increased. They will stop it, and having
stopped it they will punish the men who
SO betray their trust.
Times have changed since Christopher
Buckley's regime. Politics are not what
they were. The right to steal and plunder
and betray, to defy the law, to grant what
ever the corporations ask and to deny to
the plain people the most ordinary rights,
is not now considered the privilege of all
who win in an election.
When men are elected to responsible
trusts the people expect them to have a
care and fulfill the trust with honor.
But the people are slow to believe i'll OF
their chosen servants. The people as a
body does not like any more than does an
individual like to confess that they have
made a mistake.
When the people chose Peter A. Scully
to represent them from the Second Ward,
and c. E. Benjamin from the Third Ward,
and Alphonse Hirsch from the Fourth
Ward, and E. G. Hughes from the Sixth
Ward, and Chris bunker from the Seventh
Ward, and A. w. Morgenstern from the
Ninth Ward. and Edward L. Wagner from
the Twelfth Ward, it was because they were
deemed estimable and honorable gentle
H.
the First Ward, it must be confessed there
was a shade of doubt from the first. He
was considered one of those unfortunate
accidents that happen in parties that are
managed" without scruple. But being
onlv one in twelve he was thought to be
harmless.
So when the people saw the board they
had elected pass an ordinance making OF
the great bituminous rock industry of this
State a monopoly, barring out all the
several producers of the State from com
peting with the chosen mines of Santa
Cruz for the trade of the City and from
the business of carrying the same al
transportation companies but the Southern
Pacific Railroad, people shuddered an6
looked anxious and the more alert made {
strong protest.
But the mass of the people-even wher
they saw the persistence with which th'
Solid Eight banded together in their effor
to get the order passed over the Mayor
veto and finally changed the order into
resolution to avoid the necessity of tht
Mayors signature-even then could no
believe that there was clear intent to fl
upon the peope monopoly that will, If i
remains operative, increase beyond com
putation the taxes for street paving. Th'
thing was SO bold and defiant that tht
people could not believe-thought ther,
must be some mistake.
Then came the granting of the Church
street franchise to the Market-street Rail
road Company against the most emphatic
protests of the people of that part of tn,
Mission, and under conditions which per
mitted of no other man or corporation bid
ding for the thing offered at auction.
That outrage was accompanied and fol
lowed by great wave of protest, for her,
were many people directly and alread,
injured and they made themselves heard
And when the Solid Eight turned an abso
lutely deaf ear to all the mass of the peopl
began to realize they had made a grea
mistake in electing these men; that the.
were bad, dangerous men.
But it was last Monday that their master
the Southern Pacific Railroad Company
demanded that of these eight Supervisor
which left them standing uncloaked be
fore the eyes of all the people-the plail
servants of the great corporation.
In the two hours between the opening O
the session at clock ia the Afternoon
until it adjourned at 8, these men drov
the last faint shadow from the stronges
doubt concerning their guilty allianc
with corporations. They had no will
they were compelled to vote as they did
That was made apparent.
Otherwise they would have taken som
refuge in the many avenues offered b,
Supervisor Taylor for their escape. Blu
they allowed him to close them one afte
the other, helpless, unable to cast singl
vote in behalf of the people as agains
their master, until they stood at last il
the corral, the bars all up, convicted.
For two hours the men of the Sole
Eight bowed their heads and voted mo,
no." "no' to every proposition looking
to the amendment of the order grantin,
the Market-street Railway Company tn