The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1899-02-13
THE RAILROAD CANDIDATE.


feet that the deadlock must be broken by an open
council or caucus. Disobedience is to be followed
by the direst penalties The unpublished part of the
ukase as understood Sacramento is that each day,
the candidate having the lowest number OF votes is
to be dropped, until choice is reached by fortythre
votes a majority OF the The point OF
this nsolen dctation is that by the eliminating pro-
cess the contest will be narrowed down to Daniel
NJ. Burns and Ulysses S. Grant, both of whom
obnoxious the Republican party and to nearly all
reputable citizens in the State, and then, by the
sparing application Of the railroad screws its parasite
and representative is be forced into the seat, for
which he is intellectually and morally disqualified.
When driven into corner is. the habit OF the
railroad openly to slap the people of the State in the
face. 1t remains to be seen whether eighty-fve Re
publicans, nearly all Of whom elected in 1893
under the specific pledge that the railroad OF
politics and that they beyond railroad influence,
will convert themselves into the hand by which the slap
is to be administered. The Call and the whole indie
pendent Republican press of California has voiced the
substantially unanimous sentiment OF representative
citizens against the candidacy of Dan Burns backed
almost exclusively by the railroad, and against the
candidacy OF Ulysses S. Grant, distinctly proved to
have been forwarded by money. The Mexican as
prant however, is mmeasuraby the worst OF the two.
Had the fact been daily paraded before the public
eye it would have been inconcevable that for weeks,
defauer to the State corrupt boss of inferior
type, defeated in 1894 and since then municipal
center of political debauchery, without claim
qualification for official station legislative popu
lar recognition, should have held Senatorial election
in an iron grip. The brazen exhibition has already
dsgraced the commonwealth and mantled the faces Of
our citizens with the blush OF shame.
Appeals or warnings to Dan Burns or his railroad
master are vain They destitute of patriotism
and they perfectly understand that the question is
whether the State of California or the railroad shall
be represented in the Senate of the United States.
Their obstinate determination is that independent
Democratic Senator shall be succeeded by Repub-
lican chattel The fate of the Republican party is to
them immaterial. They more than willing, they
are anxious to swallow their declarations before the
election and to prove that the Southern Pacific
Company actually owns the State The railroad pol
icy always broad enough to take in all parties 1t is
pressed simultaneously through the most conflict
ing organizations Since November last it has be-
come apparent that the deliberate intention is to
wreck the Republican party in California and in
1900 to turn the State over to the Democrats or
more properly to the who have usurped the
name of Democracy The Inducements OF railroad
politics all point in that direction. William F. Her
rim has always been Democrat. William H. Mills
the turgid Mercury of the Record-Union and of two
or three subsidiary newspapers, advocate OF
the free silver heresy in 1906 but in 1890 the
functions of railroad slave driver OF sound-money
Republicans. The removal of the mask from the
face OF Dan Burns, January of this year,
confession of treachery Republicansm and to the
people and distinct to the party. The
ed advocacy of Dan Burns by the Examiner, which
for six weeks has been clearly discernbe is another
revelation of railroad purposes and of railroad
methods. There are hundred straws in the air,
each of which shows the drift of the existing storm
1t does not follow, because the railroad ukase has
been formulated by the Record Union, and because
the Oakland Tribune, another railroad organ, has
wheeled into line, that eighty hve Republican legis
lators will clap their hands and applaud this bare
backed act The Call so far has failed to perceive
any outward and visible signs of corruption or any
lack of brains manhood in the large majority OF
Republican Senators and Assemblymen, and it
believe that they will fasy their pledges and dis
grace themselves and their constituencies because the
railroad whip sounds about their On the con-
trary it may reasonably be expected that for once
the railroad has gone too far and assumed too much
and that it will encounter resentment instead of
forcing submission. By its acceptance of Howard E.
Wrights resignation of the Speakership and its re-
fusa to eject him from its ranks, the Assembly has
already placed itself in the attitude OF holding that
the receipt of pecuniary aid from candidate for the
Federal Senate and pledging to him reciprocal
support, does not involve personal dshonor, whether
the pledge was not kept. This unwise de-
csion may be barely tolerated upon the ground of
sympathy even when extended to unrepentant cor
ruptionst But if it followed by the election OF
Dan Burns, whose record and whose character, as
we'll as the influences behind him, universally
known and condemned, then the present Legislature
would inevitably go down poserty and to history
cedented treachery to the Republican party of the
Union.
The heroism OF our California volunteers in Cuba
and in the Philippines has been braided into history in
bright and uplifted characters In blood and in
death they have raised themselves to the level OF the
immortals and the eschschotza into the chapet
of patriotism. But here in their native State, foul
and mercenay politicians, bearing the railroad brand
seek to sacrifice interests and honor on the
altar of rapacity. The contrast is too painful for
contemplation. No legislator participate in this