The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1898-11-12
THE PASSING OF THE sANDLoT.

front OF the new City Hall was oval tract
covered with sand, Oh which organized, late
in the seventies, the sandot party. 1t was com
bination OF ambition and violence which spread
alarm throughout the State, and for.a time seemed
to threaten the permanent destruction of its prosper
ity The sandlot revolution so pronounced and
so loud and so effectually browbeat all opposition
that it attracted attention all this country, and
in Europe was really regarded as the beginning OF
another Reign of Terror such turned France into
4 slaughter pen in the revolution OF 1903.
Its theater that oval area in front of the City
Hall, has long been grass grown and group OF
statuary provided by the will of James Lick, stands
there now illustrative of the progress and power of
California.
The principles of the sandot, however, have
bad survival. The uneasy spirits which trained
there have from time to time taken possession of the
Democratic party and made it menace to the public
welfare The disease that generated on the sandlot,
as cholera starts in the we'll Zemzem in Mecca,
times went far abroad Even California Republican
ism has had sporadic attacks of it But its greatest
persistence has been in the Democracy. In 1890 it
took nearly full possession of that party and OF
thousands of Democrats fled from the pestilence and
aided in the political sanitation of the State. But
their flight left the surviving sandlotters in posses
sion of the organization, and, with the Examiner as
the sandlot organ, the campaign of 1898 was fore
doomed to be sandlot, by sandotters and for sand
lotters.
The ticket was filled with them Mcguire, Barry,
Dunn, La Rue, Henley, Grady Wallace, Menzies,
Hinton trained in the sandlot school inoculated
with its principles in congenia companionshp and in
joint cry for Office, made campaign which proved
that they were in the tertiary stage of the disease
From the skin in and from the out, flesh and
bone they sandlotters.
Heretofore the people had not enjoyed the chance
to quicklme the pestence by catching it in group,
where the caustic would harm little healthy flesh
They were quick to see the time for action The dis
nfectant was used with judgment, and the bubonic
plague of California politics obliterated in
days work The sandot sleeps under the turf and
the daisies and so does sandlotism. All of its ex-
ponents are done for. The people had been patient
with it, hoping it would die They have been some
times Indifferent to it, as is to a 1unatic who
thinks he is Jove and threatens thunderbolts But
this time patience and Indifference ceased, and the
cleansing and purifying ballot besomed the pestence
off the face of the earth and left it clean.
The day is not distant when will wonder that
they submitted to such leadership this year rode
at the head of the fusion forces. They will wonder
why they felt party zeal for that was the
first serious appearance of anarchy in this country
since the bombs burst in Hay1narket square The
quiet citizens of California will long recall the great
day which the sandlot brigade rode to its fate and
fell in a heap, never to rise again.