The San Francisco call., 1899-01-25
WHAT HIS DAN BURNS DONE?

4 MI OF TWO nunQreQ ana nifty thousand votes
l ten thousand cast dishonesty or under i'm
proper influences will often-indeed usually
determine the result of State election Then, while
the mass of the people sound, the State is
ruptly governed Out of a hundred and twenty MEM
bers of Legislature if twenty held together by
bribery in any of its multitudinous forms, they can
frequently determine legislative measures or Sena-
torial elections, in respect to which hundred
bers are honestly divided Then that Legislature
goes down to history with pestilental reputation
In the one case two hundred and forty thousand citi
zens, with their families and their material intellectual
and moral interests, have to suffer In the other
hundred legislators through their own faulty wear
crowns OF infamy they do not deserve
These are compressed illustrations of principal
causes of discomfort throughout the Union and es-
peciay IN this State at the present uncture We pre-
sent them to the members of the Legislature now
struggling to elect Federal Senator. Can they not
recognize their truth and their bearing upon the i'm
portant question that is blocking legislation against
the will and to the extreme deriment of the citizens
OF California? These gentlemen at Sacramento have
at least average intelligence and education and they
are American citizens and represent American con-
sttuencies. Do they not absolutely know, without
precise legal proof, that the influences working for
the success OF two OF the candidates be sinister
and corrupt Can they not read the faces and appre-
cate the characters OF the men who most conspc-
uous IN their advocacy OF these particular asprants?
Do they not realize the astuteness the secrecy the da
bohcal ingenuity that must be behind any effort to
elect Senator through low political combinations
and without regard to qualifications?
Purblindness alone could account for answers to
these questions that would prove unsatisfactory to
the decent citizens of this respectable State Let our
legislators apply ONE test that is demonstrative and
conclusive. Who is Dan Burns and what has he
ever done that he should be singled out as proper
man to be Senator of the United States? Is he
scholar? No Has he ever made speech that in
dicated his knowledge of the history of his country
or capacity to handle any OF the great subjects that
are considered in the upper chamber of Congress-?
No Has he ever participated in debate or shown
his ability to encounter the great minds of the ma
ton: No. Has he ever written paper or done any
thing IN literature, in craftsmanship, in finance in
commerce, in manufacture anything OF any Sort from
which a million and half of people or hundred and
twenty State Senators and Assemblymen can infer
his possession of brains, knowledge experience
power, energy, any single quality that would enable
him for five minutes to stand for the State of Cali
fornia and for seventy-fve millions of Americans in
the Senate of the United States?
What qualifications then, does he possess for the
highest office within gift? None; literally none
"a
ton in soften municipal politics, in which he has
usually failed. But he the insouble mystery of the
hour, has himself put forward one claim. and only
one, to be the successor of Stephen NJ White And
what is that? He says that he became candidate
and should be elected because he was attacked by The
Call and the Chronicle. This is the sole avowed
ground OF his candidacy, determined upon by him
January 2, I8o9 and it is the complete measure of
the man. What farce, il it not the revelation
of tragedy, that in continental republic as the
twentieth century dawns citizen should be elevated
to the Senate of the United States for no other rea
sen than that he assailed in The Call and in the
Chronicle But Nose Gunst, the immaculate Police
Commissioner, offers more solid and more plaus-
lble argument. He asserts that Dan Burns should
be elected because he contributed fifteen thousand
dollars toward Republican success in 1903 There
FORE the possession of fifteen thousand dollars taken
from the bowels of Mexico, matter how, and its
expenditure in a party campaign, is another con-
vincing proof OF craftsmanship!
And these the evidences that the State Of Cali
fornia is permitted to furnish of its high standing
before the Union and the world and of its fecundty
In the production of American statesmenl Nose
Gunst for Police Commissioner and Dan Burns for
Federal Senator! These the standards and these
the types by which American manhood and American
power and influence are to be measured throughout
continentl We again commend them to the scruti-
nizing examination OF the voters at Sacramento and
of the voters of the State and again we repeat that
the State of California, its own behalf and on be-
half of the republic repudates the corporate insult
that has marred the opening weeks of the legislative
session and demands the prompt election of Repub-
hcan who is both an American statesman and an
American gentleman.
The Legislature can quickly determine, by its vote
whether. of fort aol,tl
years, Dan Burns is Californas best and most avail