The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1898-10-27
PUBLTCOLA ON CAMPAIGN ISSUES.
Good Reasons Why Honest and Intelligent Democrats
Should Oppose Mcguire and Phelan

! legislative department, and to place
! that department under the direct SUI
! pervision of what they term the peo-
pie, acting through majorities. This is
an obliteration Of the essential elements
of our American system Of government
as declared by the courts and as cons
strued and interpreted for nearly a
hundred years by the Democratic
party The platform of the Populists,
which Mcguire has accepted, and
which, SO to speak. endeavors to hold
itself in, so as to avoid the revelation
of the full purposes of Populistic lead
ers, is, nevertheless, incarnate Jacob
inism. A man who had suggested its
leading features in 1877 would have
been drummed out of the convention
that framed our Federal constitution.
Even the convention which formed the
present constitution of this State, crude,
entangled, cumbersome and detailed as
it is, would hardly have listened re-
spectfuuy to men who would destroy
indiVidualiSm and individual rights by
the sheer weight of numbers, and to
whom the very conception of property
in land, the most fertile source OF pros
perity among the mass of the American
people, is revolving.
The genuine labor organizations of
the United States have never contem-
plated, and would be among the last
to tolerate, SO odious a revolution, which
would uprOOt our liberty and our or
der. And, while it is true that social
ism, which is an importation from Eu-
rope. is not in it's principles, or as
taught by many of it's leaders, directly
incendiary, and that it does not include
violence among its methods or as part
of its philosophy, it is also true that
disappointed socialists are easily con-
verified into anarchists, and that the
most rabid advocates of the leading
ideas incorporated into the platform OF
the PopuliStS, and at least shadoWed In
the platform which is labeled Demo-
cratic in this State, are the men who
sympathized with the Haymarket out
rage in Chicago, or who as sandlotters
burned houses and threatened to burn
steamships in San Francisco. 1t would
be false, in my opinion, even to init
mate that the body of Populists in Calf
fornia or elsewhere, or those OF the
Democratic or Republican parties who
have been touched by these proposed
innovations upon the constitution, are
Intentionally or consciously opposed to
law or order, or that they intend TO es-
tablish their doctrines by force; put,
from nv standpoint, it is perfectly cor
rect to urge that those doctrines are
antagonistic to the leading and most
vital principles of Americanlsm, ana
that they represent the acrid discon-
tent and attract the sympathy OF the
upeducated and unframed elements or
population which have disturbed the
public peace, from Watt Tyler
mob to Coxey's army. The very
genius of Americanism is the
perfected individual, capable of
being a law to himself, and, as
Herbert Spencer has demonstrated, this
is to be the highest product OF clV1llZa-
ton, and the straining effort Of all NAL
contents, of every sort, the common tie
which binds them together, is the OBJ
liberation of individualism, which is the
converging point of every feature OF cur
institutions that is distinctively Amer
lean and proclaims the inherent SOW
ereignty of disciplined and self-potsed
man, vital in every part, coeval with
the origin of the race, surviving all the
catastrophes of history, and lndlssoI-
ubly linking the creature with the Gre
ator The despOtism of major1ties, the
essence of this attempted renaissance
of the French revolution, is the near
est approach to brute force and the
furthest remove from American const1-
tutional liberty and order OF which
modern development Will admit.
The efforts which are daily made TO
attract loose and thOughtless citizens to
the disconnected conglomeration OF In
definite theories which is represented
by the fusion ticket would be amusing
if they were not so mischtevous. 1t Is
said that mistakes were made in the
conduct of the late war and some, like
myself think the war itself was mis-
take, though it has poured glory on our
flag and infamed the popular heart
with enthusiasm for conquest. But let
the mistakes be granted-is that rea-
son why Mr. Mcguire should be elected
Governor. of California? 1t is said that
the financial expedients adopted to de-
fray the cost of the war were plumbers.
Well does it logically follow that Mr..
Mcguire should win in the present can
vass? 1t is said that the railroad debt
should not have been treated as a mat
ter to be settled without litigation even
though Senator Morgan and Senator
| White acquiesced and Congressman
Barham secured an additional guar
anty for foreclosure if the settlement
be not effected within year. Well! Is
that a reason for the election of Mr..
Mcguire? The non-sequitur, or the abb
sepce of any connection between pre-
mise and conclusion, was the main
characteristic Of Mr.. Bryan's campaign
in 1896. 1t has been quadruplicated
this year until reason has almost been
scattered to the winds.
The single tax is pure confiscation
and a deception upon it's face Land
itself does not pay taxes, but 1T is the
basis upon which taxes are partly as
sessed and the money comes from the
rent The single tax would transfer
the rent to the State, and with that
transfer private ownership would cease
in substance, and indeed virtually in
form. If this is not pure confiscation,
| concentrating public burdens upon a
class, which includes farmers, horti-
culturists and miners in the country
and a large number of landlords In
cities, and exempting from the public
burdens rich men, corporations and the
holders Of personal estate and of i'm
provements on land, who could best af-
| ford to pay taxes, 1 would like Mr..
Mcguire or some one else to explain
what it is. All the dispositions upon
| 'unearned increment" and the other
cobWeb arguments with which the State
| has been flooded are destroyed by a
single fact, which every man whose
earnings are invested in land can see
as plainly as the nose On a human face.
| 1t is said that the single tax is not an
| issue. How can Mr.. Mcguire, candi-
! date for Governor, be separated from
Mr., Maguire's individuality, of which
! the single tax is an incorporate part =?
! But the single tax, though not avowed,
/ is in the platforms. 1t is in the refer