The record-union., 1896-05-03

journals as the Chronicle" Cali and
Examiner; that the citys foremost
spokesmen to the world are M. H. De-
Young, John D. Spreckels and w. K.
Hearst. Every citizen, no matter what
his politics, cannot but regret that the
mind of anyone of them should for
moment be diverted from the exclusive
consideration of the public good. SO,
when General Spreckels says that Gen.
eral DeYoung is a liar, it is obvious
that all other business should be sus-
pended, and the Republican State Com
n1ittee, the Chamber of Commerce, the
Board Of Trade, the Viticultural Asso-
citation, the Society of Arts and Crafts
and the Press Club be convoked in COM
mon session to square things. The ac-
cusation is in itself dreadful, and the
possibility OF it's being true still more
so. How Colonel Sam Shortridge could
have permitted General Spreckels to
say such a thing passes comprehension,
unless it be that the Colonel has tenn
porarily Withdrawn from real life in or
der to prepare a speech for the Gener-
ais birthday party, which is near at
hand. If Major Charles Shortridge IS
the journalist 1 take him to be he will
vited to that festival and that a COM
plimentary and appeasing sentence or
two is introduced amid the Niagara of
rhetoric, which ought to more than
compensate General DeYoung for the
affront-an affront that in other days
would have led to the effusion of blood
on the field Of honor. Unhappily, Mr.
Hearst is not here, or, as a third party
and a Democrat, he could with proprl-
ETY. intervene and protect General De-
Young from the consequences of his IN
veracity, or persuade General Spreck-
els, for the sake of the highest interests
of the city and State, to say no more
about it.
Speaking of Mr.. Hearst, his recent
stay here was very brief, but long
enough to have enabled him to do what
all his friends desired. They supposed
that the chief purpose of his return
from New York was to extricate the
Examiner" from the plight in which 1t
has been left by the exposure of its
transactions with the Southern Pacific
Railroad Company. 1t was expected
that he would cause some explanation
to be given that would put his paper and
himself in a better posture than that OF
detected blackmailerS. He knows that
the public believe that under the pre-
text of an advertising arrangement the
Examiner bargained for a subsidy of
$4,000, payable in $1,000 monthly in
stallments, to let the railroad company
alone; that when he broke the bargain
and offended the corporation and 1t re-
fused to pay the $4,000 remaining due
on the $4,000, he did not sue for the
recovery of that sum, as he naturally
would have done had the obligation been
a legitimate one and fit to bear the light
in court Knowing all this, Mr..
Hearst came and went without causing
word to be said on the subject in the
Examiner" Mr.. Hearst has no friend
who is not shocked by his inability to
make an explanation, If that be the
reason for his silence, or panied by his
indifference to his honor, if it was in
difference which moved him to ignore
the matter. The scandal has hurt the
Examiner" vitally. 1 do not know that
its circulation or advertising patronage
has been affected, but the papers char
acter is gone. And Mr. Hearst doesn't
seem to mind.
Susan B. Anthony addressed the
Women's Pacific Coast Press Associa-
ton the other night and, taking it for
granted that she was speaking to an
association of newspaper women, went
into the subject of the female in journal
ism, repelling the contention of the
''Argonaut'' that the girl reporter has
been an efficient factor in the degrada-
ton of the metropolitan press, because
of the salacious and sensational work
done by Nellie BLY,, Kitty Keeneyes,"
"Giddy Gladys and persons of that
skirt-switching and unpleasant school
I CHANGED to visit the Press Club when a
lot of newspaper men were discussing
Miss Anthony's remarks, and it inter-
ested me to discover that not one of the
journalists was acquainted with a single
name among all the officers of the
Women's Pacific Coast Press Associa-
tion published in the reports of the ex-
ercises and address. I would not say
that there are no real writers among the
members of that remarkable body, but
III the mass they are undoubtedly that
add variety of the human species-per-
sons who like to pretend to write for
print and don't. Men are not free from
this kind of humbug, but women seem
to be greatly given to it, the New
Woman particularly. Why any one,
male or female, should care to be
thought scribbler does not occur to a
scribbler in fact, but that many women
hereabouts yearn to be mistaken for
professional writers, the existence and
formidable membership of the Women's
Pacific Coast Press Association prove.
Perhaps 1T is an itch for the semblance
of fame when the ability to achieve rep
utation is absent. Women of this sort
do a deal of harm to the cause for which
women of capacity, like Miss
Anthony, battle. When they get
into print it is usually to Duff
one another, and make men wish
that feminine vanity would display it
self along the old lines, which are not
so offensive as the new.
L picked up an Eastern magazine last
week and encountered an article by
one member of the Women's Pacific
Coast Press Association about another.
Ihe subject was pictured professionally
as lawyer combining the learning of
Choate with the dignity and grace of
Clay, and was credited personally
with the feminine attractiveness of a
Julia Marlowe and the refinement of
We're de We're. In truth the woman is
ignorant as to law and most other
things worth knowing; her manner ex-
presses the aplomb which impuderft
dullness confers, and her sweet femi-
ninity' manifests itself in faded CO.
ouetry and a style of dress that even
makes ridiculous an old woman who is
determined to be young in spite of the