The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-12-06

Drominent-with his gun-in the Cochise
County seat war between Tombstone ana
Charleston of long ago.
His last public appearance in a gun play
was in the middle eighties when Mayor
Kelly ran Luke Short out Of Dodge City,
and the fugitive Luke summoned Wyatt
carp, Doc Holiday. Charley Bas-
sett, Bat Masterson and Shotgun Collins
70 aid him in the recovery Of his own. They
reinstated Luke and ne and Kelly divided
Dodge City between them.
Wyatt carp must now be As years old. He
Is grim, game and deadly. He never took
water. But he doesn't kill as he used to-
Age has cooled his blood, many wounds
have brought him caution. Moreover the
communities he honors with his presence
won't stand those gayeties which marked
Wyatt Earp's earlier career. And WyaN
has grown to like quiet life. As a reg
suit he has not taken scalp for years.
His business just now should be that OF
backlog gambler; crooked as a dog's hind
leg. If there are any honest hairs IN his
head they have grown since he left Ari-
zonia. He Is exactly the sort of man to
referee a priNe fight II a steal is meditated
and job put up to make the wrong man
win. Wyatt carp has all of the nerve and
dishonesty needed to turn the trick. The
mere name of Wyatt carp as referee shows
that Fitzsimmons was against hard
game.
The point Of honor is held sacred by men
of the carp school, II Is the experience
Of frontier communities that when one of
them is elected to office he takes his trust
with sense of responsibility which makes
him a model public servant AS members
of the Legislature, as Aldermen, as Mayors
and as Marshals these sports have nearly
always been as far above corruption as
they are removed from fear. Lobbyists
and leading citizens" with axes to grind
and pull at their command know better
than to approach them That is the rec
ord of Nevada, Arizona and Colorado. 4
hrst-class gambler and gun fighter con-
slders himself a gentleman, and noblesse
oblige controls him when he is trusted.
Maj Mckinley, in lifting his hand to
take the inaugural oath, will not be more
impressed with the awful solemnity of
the occasion than was Wyatt carp when
he stood i'm the ring on Wednesday night
and saw 1900 faces turned upon him.
The chances are that he never read of the
Circus Maximums, and thought he looked
upon the biggest crowd that had ever as
sembled on earth. That he was inspired
by resolve as lofty as 1t was grave and
stern, to do his whole duty as a judge
that he felt the imposing distinction which
had been conferred upon him. and that he
pronounced his sentence as honestly as
an judge who ever sat upon the bench
and spoke the word that meant death or
life to a fellow creature, there is no room
for reasonable doubt
Money could not buy man OF Earps
stamp to dishonor himself under clrcum-
stances so august. Why, coming from
among the Gauls Of the remote province
of Arizona, and called upon by the Ro-
mans TO preside over the gladiatorial show
in the Coliseum-why should a man keen
ly alive to the glory Of this extraordinary
eminence be suspected of sculduggery? 1t
is not in human nature, frontier human
nature, the gun-hghting sports nature.
The commercial citizens, the politicians,
the professional pugilists, the hangers-on
OF the arena and all the common souls
that find II possible to suspect Referee
carp OF dishonesty merely betray their
own moral inferority, their own baseness
Wyatt carp belongs to a class of men
who are entirely disreputable, so disreput-
able that they have but a dim apprehen-
sion of the point Of view from which the
respectable regard life. But they are men
of honor and men of dignity. Also. they
are extremely sensitive when that honor
suited in its unchristian queerness TO a
military age that is past rather than TO
this time of universal trade-is questioned.
Earps honor is being questioned, and
somebody is likely to get hurt in San
Francisco worse than Sharkey was.