The San Francisco call., 1898-01-18
Plight of the Los Angeles League for Better
 GOvernmen ent.
Citizens Now Realize That It Is Dominated by Political
 TPickStePS.
Flat Failure of Its Attempt to Snairch the Character of Director
 Webb.
Special Dispatch to The Call.

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 17.-Within the past week there has been a remarkable change in public feeling, so far as Wal ter l.. Webb is concerned. The fair and unprejudiced accounts of the School Board investigation published in The Call have been a revelation to the peo- pie. There were a few who did not be- lieve Webb to be as black as he was painted by the Willard -Gibbon-O Otis newspaper syndicate, comprising the Express, the Herald and the Times, un- Ill The Call entered the field and gave the facts as they were, and not as cer- tain interested corporations and indi- Viduals wanted them to be.
 All the testimony in the investigation before the School Board is now vir- tually in, and people are wondering what has become of all the sensational developments that have been promised by the various attorneys for the de- fense, particularly by T. F. Gibbon and w. A. Cheney. All the rules of evil dence were ignored, and everything was dragged into the light that could possibly reflect upon the legal or moral guilt of the accused. The result of this drag-net method of procedure was to bring out nothing against Webb, ex- cept the statement of two self-confess- ed perjurers and bribe- takers.
 People who have given a retrospect i've view to the situation are now ask ing why Webb alone was singled out for persistent prosecution, and why ev- erybody else, from Janitor Cooper, who confessed to paying a bribe, to Banker Braley, who confessed to having com mitted an act that is felonious. was ig- nored or deliberately defended by the League for Better City Government and the syndicated misconception of jCurnalism-the Times Herald Express. The opinion is freely expressed that the league and it's newspaper confederates were not engaged in an investigation of corruption, but in a man-hunt.
 And then comes the question: Why was the scalp of Webb wanted? This has been answered by Webb in his signed statement published in The Call of January 4. In this he stated that he was being pursued by the league as a matter of revenge for having been partly instrumental in bringing about the removal of Miss Mae Owen from the list of public school teachers and
 
 league to secure control of the city Board of Education. This assertion of Mir. Webb has since been apparently borne out by the facts that have de- Yeloped.
 That the men who control the League fer Better City Government are cap- able of entering upon a conspiracy, such as this appears to be. is demon strated by what they have already done in connection with the affairs of the league. The latest election of di- rectors of the league took place on June 15, 1897. At that election three men ineligible to the office were elect ed as directors. One of the bylaws in force at this time provides as follows:
 The corporate powers. business and property of the corporation shall be exer- Cised. conducted and controlled by a board of directors, all of whom must be members in good standing.
 Among the twenty-three members of the board of directors declared elected were Harry Chandler Octavius Nor gan and NJ Welsh, none of whom had paid the semi-annual dues payable on or before the day of election. In the notices of the election sent out to mem- bers, the following sentence was con- spicuously displayed in heavy, black faced type: 'The semi-annual dues of one dollar are due and payable before June 15, 1897" On the ballots mailed to each member attention was called to the same duty in the following line: 'Semi-annual dues of $1 must be. paid before voting"
 The fact that Chandler, Morgan and Welsh were not qualified at the time they were elected was called to the at tention of c. $. Walton, the secretary of the league, and he promised to call the attention of the directors to the af- fair Nothing has been heard of it from that day to this, and the three men illegally elected have been allowed without question by the proper author ities. It is claimed that the men who were frozen out by this fraud were not acceptable to the men of the inner cir cle. Chandler is a son-in-law of H. G. Otis, the editor of the Times, and is the superintendent of circulation of that newspaper. Chandler is now the sec ond vice president of the league, and Morgan was the second vice-president of that organization previous to the last election. Neither of them, appar- ently. could be spared from the board of directors.
 That the league has been under sus- picion by the perspicacious ever since it was launched upon the political ocean is shown by its own confessions made in it's official printed bulletins There is a peculiar vein of apology and through IneS6 CIT culars that savers strongly of hypocri- sy and deception to one who can read between the lines. In the bulletin is sued as far back as June %, 1896. occurs the following significant remarks:
 Since the Better Government circulars came out the street has been full of strange and often ludicrous rumors con .cerning the movement. These may be ex- pected right along. and need not worry anybody. Some of these are so enter taining as to he worth repeating:
 It Is said <fat the presence of four or five Stockhc ders of the water company on the original list shows very plainly that it Is a scheme in favor of that cor poration.
 For similar reasons it Is said to be Los Angeles lighting scheme and street car company scheme.
 It is said to be a Democratic scheme to elect a certain man Mayor.
 That these rumors have not been ex plotted in the local newspapers Is simply due to the fact that the owners of these journals are part and parcel of the gigantic scheme to turn over the control of the city government to the corporations. In the bulletin of July 13 occurs the following: