The San Francisco call., 1895-11-05
Having Control, the Blind Boss
Will Hold a Primary
at Once.
MASs-MEETING OF HIS FRIENDS.
The Junta's Revolutionary Programme
Fades as Chris Rises in
Power.

Buckley has captured the works. He
owns the general committee, will have q
primary election right away and Sam
Rainey is in his camp. He is "uniting"
and "harmonizing" the party, as he said
should be done, by taking it into his camp.
To-day the Democratic local party ma
chine is beyond all doubt and beyond all
hope of his enemies under the absolute
control of the Blind Boss that has re.
turned to power. He now controls the
general committee by large majority,
as is shown by the signatures of 259 out of
45O members who have signed the Buckley
and anti-junta pledge adopted at the re-
cent caucus at Metropolitan Temple, and
thirty more are stated to be ready to sign
| this week.
| Having gained this effective working
majority in the existing but ancient party
organization created in 1892 by the men
| and forces that successfully and seemingly
forever overthrew him, be is losing no
time in using his strength and pushing
| his party campaign.
| The programme now to be quickly and
vigorously carried out is to have the pres
| ent general committee meet within q
week or SO and order primary election.
committee. Buckley will control the
| primary through the machine that directs
| 1t, and 1t is an elementary political truth
| in San Francisco, that none but greenhorns
will deny, that control of primary ma
chinery means certain victory as matter
OF course: So thirty days or little more
| will give the local party a brand-new ma
chine, with Buckley as chief engineer as of
yore.
This programme is being carried out with
rigid regard for regularity, political pro-
! priety and "purity" of civic politics. The
people are doing it all themselves-in
form. A caucus of the Buckley element
OF the general committee was held at Cali
| ifornia Hall on Bush street last night, at
which the report of 259 signatures was re-
| ceived with applause, and the programme
of calling a regular meeting of the general
committee for next Monday night, to order
primary election, was enthusiastically
adopted. 1t is now easy to fight the Junta
with large majority.
While Buckley has been making his still
| hunt with masterful shrewdness during
the few weeks that have elapsed since he
loomed up suddenly and scared some of the
| anti-Buckley men into combining against
him, and while he has thus been steadily
gainiug the mastery he now suddenly ex-
hibits, the Junta has been losing the
strength and force it exhibited with much
noise while it was calling out that Deuprey
committee and launching its bold scheme
to arbitrarily appoint a new general COM
mittee and so reorganlZe every Buckley
element out of it.
Nothing has been heard of the Junta
since it got the Deuprey committee to-
| gether about two weeks ago and induced
it to adopt the McNab-Daggett-R -Rainey-
Popper-Welburn programme so far as to
ask Chairman Watkins to appoint AN ad-
| ditional committee of twenty-five on Ieor-
| oaDjzation
The trouble is that the McNabers struck
snags right away. When the Deuprey
committee held its first meeting all
seemed fair for the revolutionry and
arbitrary, creation of a new general COM
mittee as the only means of securing the
that the party was not in Mysteries about
Buckley if McNab and Braunhart were.
The City is full of solid Democrats, promi-
nent and obscure, who take no active in
terest in this factional squabble. They
had no great faith in the motives and
abilities of the men who bobbed up as
leaders alongside of Sam Rainey. They
must give volume to any flood of reform
that breaks loose, and they have not
approved the "dead mortal cinch' scheme
OF the Junta, and the Richmonds that
few to arms find themselves handful in
the field, with desertions to count instead
of endorsements.
Buckley and his influential friends have
carefully, quickly and shrewdly worked
this solid element of the party. The solid
downtown merchants and professional
men that have gone into the Buckley
camp suggest the blue book and roll OF
the Board of Trade. Another part of this
element does not approve Buckley but has
no use for the Junta and its programme.
Such men as John Mccarthy and the
wholesale tea merchant and president OF
the Occidental Club, James II. O'Brien,
A. I: SPOTS and many others
have been quietly and persistently
talking political sense and party
harmony among influential Democrats.
AS result it is known that Judge Sulli-
van, who led the anti. Buckley revolution
OF 1882. Congressman Mcguire, John H.
wise, Denis Spencer, A. A. Hooper, and
many other such men, have expressed
their opposition to the Junta programme
and their favor of a primary election at
which the people should determine who
should run the party
But the McNab programme has turned
the stomachs of many of the mem bers OF
the Deuprey committee itself. 1t was too
raw" pause has come to the commit
tee. W. P. Sullivan, the chairman OF the
committee, is one of the members who
have halted, seen the failure that awaited
the scheme and who now favor primary
election.
Then the natural jealouses of the collec-
tion of Junta leaders have been getting IN
their work. Deadly enemies were united In
the cause of ''pure politics" and Sam
RaIney was the biggest bolt that gave the
union strength.
"Popper and Braunhart were like that.
said James H. O'Brien yesterday as he
laughed and showed two fat fingers side
bv side. 0and Pepper and Daggett were
like that" and the fingers flew po1|at npaFs
elements in the anti-Buckley faction, and
the party workers in the districts depended
on for much of the strength and practical
operations of the Junta have been kept in
line, not by the specter of Buckley, which
scares them not, but by the tactical force
of men who have given them jobs and can
command their services.
But it's Rainey's flop, that is the biggest
thing in the recent shifting of the situa-
tion. Rainey sticks to Daggett, who, by
the way. is off to Siskiyou for couple of
weeks, but Pepper is his bitter enemy and
he has no particular use for McNab or any
of the rest of the Junta leaders.
"Rainey says they can't hold together
that they have nothing in common" said
very prominent Democrat, yesterday,