The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-09-06

vaal, in which the raid of Dr. Jameson
and followers and the action of the johann
nesnurg Reform Committee are fully
justified and shown to be only culmina-
ton of the unjust treatment of Uitlanders
by the Beers Davis says:
On the day that jameson and his officers
were found guilty of infringing the foreign
enlistment act and sent 10 prison, Mr. John
Hays Hammond, the American engineer who
Was a most active member OF the Reform Com
mittee in johannesburg at the time of the
raid was staying in London at the Savoy
Hotel.
1 happened to hear this and, remem-
bering that Mr.. Hammond had been one of
those who invited Jameson to enter Johannes
burg and who had then left him to fight his
way there unsuppo rted, said that if had to
choose I would rather be in Holloway prison
with Jameson than in the Savoy with Ham
mond.
This remark was carried to Mr.. Hammond
by mutual friend, classmate of Hammonds
at Yale, who asked me 10 keep my opinion in
allegiance until I had heard Hammond's side
of the story. The sane mutual friend then in
vited me to dine with Hammond and himself
and for the first time 1 heard the story OF the
Jameson raid told in q manner which con-
WINGED me that the charges of cowardice laid
against the reform committee were unmerited
The story has never been made public, but it
is full of interest, putting many things in a
new light, adjusting the blame and, in my
opinion at least, removing the charge of lack
of faith under which the members of the re-
form committee and the people of Johannes
burg have been resting in silence.
That they have been silent for so long is be-
cause they did not wish anything to appear in
print while DR.. Jameson was awaiting trial
which might deprive him of popular sympa-
thy which he enjoyed during that period, and
which they hoped might help to lessen the Sc
verify OF his sentence.
That sentence has now been passed, without
much regard having been shown for the point
OF view OF the people, and DR.. Jameson is pay.
ing for his adventure like & man. And in
time, having paid for it in full, he will come
out again as picturesque a figure, and with q
great mass of the British public as popular q
hero as when he won the Matabeleland and
administered that troublous territory in the
interests of the Chartered Company and later
made his ill-conceived and ill-starred invasion
of the Transvaal.
AS he has had his turn, 1t seems only right
now that he should give place in the public
eye to those who have suffered well as him.
self, and through his action, whose plans ne
spoiled and whose purposes his conduct en-
trely misrepresented 10 the world. For these
other men of the reform committee have lain,
owing to him, in a far worse jail than Hollo-
way prison, and some still lie there. Some
have been sentenced TO death, while others
have been fined fortunes, and, more than all
else besides, they have had to bear the odium
of having been believed, both in the United
States and il. England, to have shown the
white feather in deserving a comrade and of
falling to keep the promises of help they had
held out TO him.
The reform committee of johannesburg was
organized with the object of obtaining certain
reforms which had grown so serious that the
position of the Uitlanders in the Transvaal
had become unbearable. There is an obiec-
ton which is instantly raised whenever the
condition of the Uitlanders is described as 1
have just STAGED it. 1t is this: If the Uitlanders
old not like the laws of the Transvaal why did
they not leave it and go elsewhere; the world
is large enough for everybody? Why did they
instead plot to upset the government OF the
Beers who had sheltered them, and who only
asked to be left to breed their cattle and TO