The herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1893-1900, 1898-12-07
THE SENATORIAL SCRAP
rs WAXING FIERCER DAY BY
DAY
SOME EDITORIAL AMENITIES
The Story Of "Keyhole de Young
The Chronicles Sanctimonious
Innocence Concerning s. P.

| Inc Cnr0nlcle'S Sanct1mOulOuS
Innocence Concerning S. p.
| Up north the politicians are still all torn
up over the senatorial squabble caused by
the farce comedy recently played by Edi-
tors John Dough Spreckles, M. II. De Young,
and w. F. Herrin, the Southern Pacific's
chief counsel. The three actors have
reached the point wher the classic phrase
''caustic verbiage" is the only one that de-
scribes adequately their utterances. For
example, Mr.. Spreckles, in his paper OF Sun
day, called Mr.. Herrin "a dog and "a liar,
saying he had "been whipped back to his
kennel" Mr.. De Young has also INDUCED
in the same sort Of verbal pyrotechnics with
extra sulphuric squbs attached, and Mr..
Herrin has denomnated both of the editors
as devoid of truth. Some of the people ex-
pect scrap. Mr.. Spreckles prances about
the Palace grill room with jaunty air, and
is thought to be keeping up his training.
He is boxer of some local renown, and if
it was question of knock down and drag
out fight he would have the best of it. But
Mr. De Young does not fight that way; he
prefers newspaper denuncations, while Mr..
Herrin seems to be satisfied with sitting
quietly in his office and wondering why the
editors rage and the politicians imagine a
vain thing.
The only person that both Michael Henri
and John Dough are unanimous about in
their war of explosives is Colonel Dan
Burns, who seems to be having as much fun
as the Democrats out of the mess. Colonel
Dan wraps his zerape about him, cocks his
sombrero over his left eye, clinlIs his spurs
and clicks his heels together, while he poses
among his admiring friends as the man who
has made editors of two great papers thor
oughly unhappy and enraged, and who can
smile and enjoy their predicament as he
munches his chile con carne and smokes his
cgaritos. Apropos Of the scrap, the Ex-
aminer of Monday has the following in it's
josh of the personages concerned:
GAS for Colonel Burns, he persists in his
refusal to talk back, but some of his init
mates are threatening all sorts of revelations
about the political shortcomings of Colonel
Spreckles and General De Young. In fact,
these acerbc partsans of Burns have
already begun to refer to General De Young
as "Key-hole De Young" and when pressed
for an explanation of the sobriquet they
tell an amusing tale Of conference at the
Palace hotel. According to this story, Ma
jor Mclaughlin, Colonel Burns, Herrin and
some of the other Republican leaders, were
together in a room holding a secret discus
sion of party affairs. The major suddenly
| cooked suspicious ear, rose, and said in a
| whisper:
"'Keep right on talking, gentlemen
"Then he tiptoed to the door and, throw
ing it open with sudden vigor almost over
set the inquisitive General De Young, who
had been endeavoring to gather information
at the keyhole.
"This amusing tale is as holly denied by
the generals friends as it is stoutly assert
ed by the colonePs admirers; but, true or
false, it goes to show the conditions of mind
and mouth already prevailing in the battle
of the Republican giants. There undoubted-
ly will be many more such tales to come,
for the ruction is just beginning to get well
warmed"
The Call of Monday had nothing to add to
its anathema maranatha proclaimed in its
Sunday issue, in which the impolite refer
ences to dogs, liars and kennels were
printed. But the Chronicle, always taking
itself au grand serieux, affects to have a
fear that the Southern Pacific may take a
hand in politics effectively. Mr.. De Young
ought to get some new reporters, for he
evidently has never heard of the Sacramento
convention that nominated the last Repub-
lican state ticket, has never been informed
of the intricacies of Mr.. Herrin's political
bureaus and seems utterly at sea regarding
his party and the railway company. He does
seem, it is true, to have some faint percep-
ton that something of the kind occurred
in some ancient time, but has horrible fears
for the future now that he finds that Mr..
Herrin will not make him senator. As an
example of English that says thousand
things indirectly for one that it states frank
ly, the following editorial from the Chroni-
Gle of Monday is gem and is entertaining
to a degree. 1t is entitled "The Railroad
and the Peoples"
"The strenuous efforts of the Examiner
to make it appear that Republicans during
the recent campaign were practicing de-
ception when they proclaimed their belief
that the Southern Pacific was out of poll
tics creates the impression that our con.
temporary is preparing to abandon its at
tacks OH the corporation. To insist, as it
now does, that it was perfectly clear that
the railroad was in politics and that the
people knew it, is equivalent to an admis-
sion that an overwhelming majority of Cali
fornians are satisfied to have the corporation
manage their political atfirs.
"This is the view taken by Southern Pa
cific organs and by Mr.. Herrin, who boast.
fully claimed a day or two after the recent
election that it was railroad victory and
that the Southern Pacific wore at it's belt
among other scalps that of the Examiner
and Mr.. Mcguire. But this opinion is not
shared by the people. On the contrary, they
resent any assumption of the kind as re-
Election ON their intelligence. and their
honesty.
at is possible that the Republicans who
triumphantly elected Henry L. Gage may be
open to the charge that they were too ready
to accept the professions of men whose past
record is one of continuous corruption, but
it must not be forgotten that the heads of
the corporation for some time have been
showing signs not exactly of penitence, but
of perception Of the fact that in the long
run course of venality and bribery is an
Improbable one for railroad to pursue.
"Had belief prevailed that the Repub-
lican party was tied up to the Southern Pa
cific it would have been showed under.
''The illusion has been dissipated by Mr..
Herrin, who, in the bungling manner which
frequently characterizes the work of novices
in the art of political manipulation, has
o,,op1,, shown tho hand of tho oorporo ion