The San Francisco call., 1898-07-27
THAT WOODLAND FELLOW.

teered to his country in military ca
 pacty, with string to his patriotism, has been left unnotced, until he should fill out the catalogue of his deficiencies in decency and good character
 In recent issue of his paper he seems to have finished the list, and we pay him now final attention He publishes telegram sent to him from larson City, Nevada dated July g, as follows:
 Sam Leake of The Call asked his Carson cor respondent to find out the of the four Wood land men who refused to muster n.
 The editor thereupon says: This demonstrates the malignant spirit of this man Leake and the Budd organ he is running He seems bent on persecut- ing the Woodland men who defed his boss Jim Budd."
 Now let this fellow take look at himself in the mirror of the facts. On July 22 it was wired from Carson that "sx members of Company failed to muster In to-day, having skipped out All ot them came from California originally"
 Anxious to save the credit of California by spot ting these six skukers and by getting their to make the responsibility personal and lift it from the State The Call wired its correspondent at Carson this dispatch, see files of Western Union office:
 Davis, Carson, Nevada: Send particulars failure members Company A to muster in, giving names and places they came from CALL"
 This was filed at I2:3o a. m, the 23d. It made mention of Woodland any place, even of the State, and by using the word places" proved that no one place in mind The answer published In issue of the 23d gave the of the men, said they were hoboes, picked of brakebeams at Reno and Winnemucca who enlisted to get few square meals and giving their residence California This relieved the State of responsibility for the va garies of lot of tramps, and the incident closed, til it was reopened by the editor of the Mail, who persists in showing fellow feeling for skulkers by taking up their cause and abusing all who rebuke them.
 To go back to his grievance. He was an enlisted man in the Woodland company. The Governor of California, by virtue of his legal authority appointed the officers of the company. This seized pretcxt by the editorial warrior to escape from the service with a whole skin which he seems to value more highly than he does his country. Industrious cultivation of dscontent gained recruits his pur pose, and many members of the company refused to be sworn into the Federal service, and after ward mustered out of the State militia The Gov ernor is the commander-n-chief of the National Guard. He acted within his plain grant of author ity and whether his act disasteful not to the men, their oath required their obedience to it. If the commander-in- chief had withdrawn his action at their dictation discipline would have been at an end He did just what the President has been called on to do nearly every day since war was declared. Not every private in the ranks is expected to be pleased with the brigade and division officers desig mated by the President, but soldiers first duty is obedience and he has to accept the officers ap- pointed over him by the final authority. Perhaps no appointment strongly opposed than that of Brigader General Harrison Gray Otis. The rnost bitter criticism of it came from California. But the President made it. and The Call which had given the opposition chance to be heard in Its columns, at once set the example of good citizenship by cheer ul acquiescence in the act of the final authority The editor of the Woodland Mail, under similar crcum- stances, showed that in his makeup there is not single fiber of good citizenship, nor In all his blood drop that is reddened by patriotism It is evident that he enlisted in spirit of vainglory for the tenn porary ttlation of the fattery of his neghbors and retreated the first opportunity to back out of promise he had not the courage to keep With him. no doubt, went several gallant whose of duty for the moment obscured by the griev- ance he invented and propagated They were placed in painful position they will long regret, and which their friends will gladly forget, if this scribbng coward who had not the courage to swap his scissors for sword will permit the incident to pass into ob livion But the incorrgible poltroon seems deter mined to gorify his skulk into virtue, by lying about The Call. If he be patriot if his enlist ment were in good faith he has had opportunity to prove 1t by -enlisting in any other company. But emitting this proof the world is warranted in the conclusion that the army is stronger for his absence from the ranks and that civil life is degraded by his return to it. His neighbors will long remember when Dungan, the dunghill, went briefly into busi- gamecock, but soon skulked back to scratch and crow in the same old place