The San Francisco call., 1898-11-30
EATING THREE
 MEALS 1 DAY
 AS IF TORE Absence of Famine at Sacramento.
SILLY NEWSPAPER ARTICLE
DECLARED WoRKINGMEN WERE
 STARVING.
Citizens fingered by an Examiner "Pipe-Dream" Following the Recent Fire in the
 Carshops.
Special Dispatch to The Call.

SACRAMENTO, Nov. 29-A space writer in the San Francisco Examiner last Sunday covered an entire page with an industrious effort to have the public believe that Sacramento is like ly to overlook the celebration of the approaching Christmas because a fire at the railroad shops of the Southern Pacific Company recently destroyed small portion of the plant and tenn porarily threw out of employment a fraction of the force of mechanics. The story is luridly illustrated. an at- tempt being made by the artist to de- pict such scene of domestic misery as might be encountered among the Strik- ing coke burners of Pennsylvania, but which nobody but a hysterical illus trator for a yellow Sunday supplement could locate in a prosperous commun- ity like Sacramento.
 As a matter of fact, as has been told in dispatches to The Call. the effects of the fire have not been such a to cause any serious distress. Nearly all of the men whom the fire compelled the railroad company to drop temporarily from the payroll were skilled mechan- ics, earning good wages and living in comfortable homes. Putting a speech In the mouth of one of these citizens about the dreaded poverty which the winter is to bring down upon his house. hold, and, inferentially, upon the households of his hundreds of CO., workers. may answer for rhetorical purposes, but this is not appreciated by the people of a city like Sacramento, which has always prided itself on It's ability to weather far greater calami- ties than the destruction of a couple of the many buildings at the railroad shops. The effect of the circulation of such publication is, of course, disad- vantageous to the city, and, naturally, where the article has not been laughed at here, it has aroused a measure of resentment.
 The Bee tonight, referring to the story in last Sundays Examiner, says:
 The article was altogether misleading, as the facts are decidedly otherwise than those the article sought to convey. The truth is that by far the larger part of the men who were temporarily made idle were put at work within a day or two after the fire and have been kept at work ever since. Those who have not been able to return to work are in the minor homes and not few have bank accounts, there is no Likelihood that their Christ mas will be very heavily curtailed.
 In conversation to-day H. J. Small, superintendent of motive power, and machinery, stated that 200 Uf the 300 men temporarily thrown out of work by the fire were now being employed in the temporary shops erected pending the completion of the new buildings, which were under way.
 The citizens of Sacramento, as we'll as the men at the railroad shops, do not consider the fact that 100 men out of a daily force of 2400 are out of em- ployment waiting for the new shops to be finished warrants the publication of a story whose pictures. headlines and general character are int -nded to make the public believe that Sacramen- to is in the throes of a poverty so in- tense as to make necessary postpone ment of the holiday season.