The San Francisco call., 1903-09-20
Copyright. 1903. by Thomas Fitch.
THE SILVER STATE.

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Copyright. 1903. by Thomas Fitch
THE SILVER STATE.
CHAPTER I.
VERDURELESS, treeless, arid
plain, stretching away westward
RI from the eastern slope Of the pine
" crowned Sierras, with a few
streams tumbling In cascades and
rapids from the mountains and coursing
through q few narrow green valleys ere
they lose themselves f. the sagebrush
desert-such was the Silver State in 1860.
when Horace Greeley said. Nevada
ought 70 be good for silver. for It is not
good for anything else" And the pioneers
replied:
What though Nevada's hills be sere.
her deserts dresr. her tempests cold.
6tII 10 her mountain breast
The precious ore iG pressed.
Her brow is silver tressed,
her veins are gold.
Tens OF thousands OF the brightest,
bravest. most generous. enterprising and
energetic men on earth. the knight Pala-
oins, who challenged the brute forces Of
nature 10 combat. the soldiers who. pos
sessed with the aura sacra flames. faced
the storm and the savage, the desert and
Mount Davidson and reached out TO Au-
rora. to Reece River. and TO the noun
tains OF the Humboldt Crawling like
huge files over the bald skulls of lofty
mountains. plOdding across alkaline des-
erts, which pulsed with deluding mirages
under the throbbing light, and shifting
with pick and hammer at the adamantine
doors Of the earth's treasure chamber,
IL - 41-1f~ IT,,
posed task
Reader with rife or revolver than with
Gcriptural quotations was the Nevadan OF
those days and reader still with his coin
sack at the call OF distress. Under the
blue shirt might be found sometimes a
graduate OF Yale, and sometimes a fugi-
tive from Texas No man assumed to be
better than his neighbor and no man con-
ceded his inferiority to anybody. Frei-
burg graduates and sheep herders, divtn-
fly students and Cornish miners, farmer
boys and ex-Judges Of the Supreme Court
were ali treasure seekers together, and
& blow OF a pick might make or unmake
fortunes and equalize the beggars and
the princes OF this Aladdins cave. Some
found fortunes and some found unmarked
graves upon the hillsides. and many have
become rich or renowned in other fields
but not one among them all Will remem-
Der with other than affection the days
away back '1n the sixties" when he
wrought the warp and spun the woof OF
Tsinbows IN the Sagebrush State.
In those days only the upper levels Of
the Comstock were yielding their treas
-ures, the great Bonanza was undiscov-
cred. the California and Consolidated Vir-
giria exhibited nothing but barren quartz
and hope, and those who at a later day
controlled the financial and political des-
tinies OF Nevada were working as labor
ers In the mines or mixing cocktails or
practicing as members Of brilliant a
bar as could be found in any community
OF thrice its size in all the land.
Never was there a Berserker in all the
realm OF Odin who loved to night
for the fights sake, for the very Joy
OF combat, better than United States
Senator William NJ. Stewart Glo-
rious, Incompatible, indomitable, un-
dismayed. tireless ''Old Bill" Though
fottune forsake him, though death
snatch from him his nearest, though
the favored of Plutus intrigue for
his togs, though the wand of age has
changed his tawny hair and beard to sill
yer. his steel blue eyes have not lost
their glitter. nor his port its erectness,
and he springs to the front In the tourna-
ment OF Senatorial debate as vigorous
and alert as when he engaged in the con-
tests Of the courtroom forty years ago.
And It was a field OF battle in which
the wsrriers were intellectual athletes
Ex-supreme Justice Charley Bryan, who
escaped from desert sand storms and
Ache arrows. and at last choked to
death on a beefsteak in a Carson res
taurant; Thomas H. Williams. who was
forced TO take a portion Of the Califor-
MIA mine for fee, and held ii because he
could not sell II, and was made a mil
lonaire in despite of himself; Frank
Hereford, afterward Congressman and
Senator from West Virginia; Mesiek and
Hiilyer, and Baldwin, and DeLong, and
Perley, and last but not least, Charles H.
s. Williams, who once said TO me, 81 am
going back to California. have prac-
ticed law In Virginia City for a year. I
have taken IN over forty thousand dollars
IN cash fees, and I have never tried a
case in which I was not forced to know
that either by my client or by the client
OF my opponent the Judge or the Jury
OF both, had been bribed." He returned
70 San Francisco, failed TO recover his
lost practice there. and too proud to be
second where he had once been first, in
ht OF despondency blew out his brains.
General Williams did not much overes-
innate the situation, for the voters of
Nevada who had previously voted almost
unanimously to reject constitution of
State government believing themselves