The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-08-17
THE LAST OF THE
 VIGILANTES

In California the outlander from the effete East or the prosperous Middle West is welcomed with glad hands, and, if he have money or brains in considerable quantities he is given the keys of whatever city he honors with his presence and told that the whole bloomin' works are his. ''Welcome to our city, is a phrase which drops from California lips with spontaneity and eclat. After a time, however, the outlander begins to dimly perceIve that in spite of the cordiality and sin cerity of the hospitality rendered to him, he is doomeT by the accident of birth never to penetrate into the real inner circle of California aristocracy. The doors of the parfors of the Ma tive Sons of the Golden West are for ever closed to him.
 To be native son. means more in California than in any other part of America. To be the descendant of a '4Ser even if that hardy pioneer was cast in a. very humble role-is to pene- trate into the inner circle of Native Sondom. Within that inner circle is another smaller more select, whose exalted members may give. utterance
 
 am descended from member of the Vigilance Committed" Dukes, ear1s, counts, lords, what are they, compared with the scions of the red-blooded Vigilantes?
 It was sixty years ago today that San Francisco saw the last of its Vigi- lance Committee, as an official or- ganization. Having transformed the 11nr oR into an orderly and law-abiding town, the Vigilantes made their last public appearance on August IT, 1856. Head ed by bands playing martial music and cheered wildly by the thousands of people who lined the sidewalks, the Vigilantes marched proudly through the streets. They were an army of private citizens who had defied the legally constituted authorities in or der to enforce the 1aw-four regiments of infantry, battery of artillery, and a battalion of cavalry. For three days more than three months this army had been under arms, and, having ac- complished what they had set out to do, they voluntarily resigned their commissions in the army of law and order.
 
 Committee began it's activities in San Francisco, the town had been the Mecca of the criminals of the whole world. From all parts of America, from Europe and from Australia, the unsavory crew flocked to the new El Dorado. San Francisco was the dump f ing ground for the scum and dregs of the underworld. Highway robbery was pastime, murder an epidemic, vice of all varieties and degrees was commonplace. Rightly or wrongly, the honest citizens became impressed with the idea that the courts were the refuge and protection of the rogues. After making public example of two criminals who were hanged in the street, crime became less rampant for a time, and the vigilantes became in- active.
 The murder in 1856 of James King of William, the editor of the San Francisco Bulletin, aroused the vigi- lantes to renewed action. James F. Casey, the assassin of the editor. and Cora, a gambler also accused of mur- der, were taken from the jail, tried by the committees court, and duly executed. The building called Fort Vigilance became for time the cen ter of all authority in San Francisco. Other murderers soon paid the penal ty exacted by the lawless defenders of the law, and the rogues began to scatter, seeking climates more health full. Human life became sacred, pro- perty was safe, and San Francisco had developed a civic conscience. In carrying out their designs the vigilantes had to defy the legal au- thorities of the state, but, in the crisis which confronted them, few will now say that the end did not justify the means.