The San Francisco call., 1899-01-25

CALL HEADQUARTERS, SACRA-
MENTO, Jan. 24-Probably Assembly
man Works of San Diego is sorry now
for having monkeyed with the artistic
buzzsaw. He wants the printing of
cartoons made an offense and so far
as he is concerned it has become an
offense already. An artist delights in
exaggerating peculiarities. He will
make a large ear stand out like the
sail Of a four-master in a gale. He
Will enlarge bumps or even create them,
but he is safest when let alone Works
can no more check the cartoonist than
he can control the soughing of the
breezes through the orange groves of
his beloved southland, and the sooner
he understands this the better for his
piece Of mind.
The usual ballot took place at noon
to-day and with nothing but the usual
result, except that some of the mem
bers were tired and stayed away. There
is an understanding that the break has
been deferred and the date of the STAN
pede is not fixed. Indeed, there is no
candidate at present who can control
It. The issue is between Burns and the
mysterious unknown which the future
is TO develop. It may be Barnes, it may
be Scott, it may be somebody not yet
mentioned. Meantime the daily rig
marole has become a burden TO the
soul, and the utterances of the wise
acres a series of chestnuts. Having
been ordered here to watch the Sena-
torial fight I am glad to be ordered
away, as there is nothing just now
worth watching. Of course climax is
coming, but the millennium is also cur
renty reported on the way.
As this is written the investigation
committee is in session at the Capitol.
Its work is drawing to a close, and. as
SAID often in these letters, does not
amount to anything beyond the exposure
OF the untrustworthiness of Speaker
Wright and the glorification of Burns.
have not the slightest admiration for
the game of politics. 1t is rotten
throughout, its basis deception, its pur-
pose evil and its participants respect
able men who in matters pertaining to
their calling are not to be believed
under oath. Yet there is possibility
of admiring the consummate skill
which makes the black white and the
round square. Everybody to-day is
laughing at the Burns capture of the
investigation committee. There was
never a smoother operation. The com
mittee had brought the Grant cam
paign into disrepute, it had listened to
an arraignment of methods employed
in behalf of Bulla and then the Burns
forces appeared upon the scene to show
how pure they were, how lofty their
aspirations. how spotless their in
tegrity, and they showed it, 1 do not
mean that all listeners accepted the
evidence but it stands on the record,
against it the word of a single witness,
and sustaining it the words of the dig
nified push, headed by Burns himself.
There is no course open to the COM
mittee but a general vindicatiOn, which
will leave matters just as they were in
the beginning, for anybody knows that
truth has been perverted, repressed and
has had substituted for it fiction so
gToundless as to excite the risibles of
a horse. Yet this fiction stands as fact
It will not be controverted nor i'm
pugned. The Burns people were wise
in dismissing their touts and resorting
TO diplomacy. For myself 1 do not care
what the decision of the committee
may be. 1t will have been practically
dictated, and it will SLAYER the whiten-