Year: 1878

The results of the election held last week in
Calf )ruiR for delegates to Constitutional
Convention seem to have startled good many
people. There is matter enough, no doubt, for
surprise in the fsot that railroad kiDgs aud
stock gamblers who have so long held that
State under their thu NIB should have suddenly
received 80 rude q shock. Whether there is
any ground for alarm depends on the use
which the labor party means to make of it's
opportunity. But aside from the social boar
ings of this political revolution, about which
we shall know more by and by, there are feat
ures in it which deserve particular attention.


90 the face of it such an explosion implies
huge accumulation of sDHsring and bitterness.
We could not easily overstste ths provocation
for the new movement in California politics
There is @ kind of retributive justice in it. 1t
world has the poor man been so shamelessly
and 30 ruthltssly plundered under the sanc-
tion of commercial morality, and with the ts cit
assent of the law. What is known as the
freezing out process has there been couute-
nsnced by legislation, protected by the courts
and 81 scientifically applied to every field of
human industry. IL had come to be the
avowedlobjeot ofspeculston, the Fundamental
principle of trade had ceased to carry any
stigma, and had passed into joke. In .
country tainted through and through with the
greed of sudden wealth, where every trades
man, farmer, artisan, aud laborer risks his
savings in mining scrip, it grew to be an axiom
that honest gains for small sharebolders were
impossible. To own less than one-half the
BGOCk IN u given WAS W own "OE6o
than nothing, for the disclosure of bonanza
was only the signal for q fresh imposition.
We need not say that no railroad corporations
could pretend to eclipse those of California in
cynical contempt of fair dealing and remorse-
less exploitation of their monopolies. But it
Is not SO Renersily known that the same un-
scrupulous methods have been practised in the
grain business, the wine business the fruit
business-under whatever circumstances, in
deed, q man of modest or ecant means tried to
cell the prodect Of bis farm or the labor of his
hands. No doubt the friction of competing
claims can be reduced to o minimum under
equal laws and well-informed public opinion;
but what hope of protection had the working
man in o State where his antagonists owned
the ne ewspapers, bought Legislatures, and con-
trolled the courtsH 1t is not stranRe that he
should fail to appreciate the competitive prin-
ople thus disguised, and should snatch RS any
order and open free field. When We consider
how the existing economical conditions sbs sped
by railroad sharks and stock gamblers, have
crushed the workingmsn OF California, We are
not disposed to view too bsrshly his heRdlong z
ardor to do away with them.


The peculiar stRte of things on the Paci Rc
coast explains the anomalous fact that in the
recent contest all the cohesion and momentum
derived from organic alton seem to have been
been gulled and mystifsd and overreRched so
often that it proved sheer impossibiiity to
swindle them again. In this unique instance
distrust of their opponents was 30 inveterRte
and intense as to control and stife intestine
jealousy and discord. In the early phases Of
the movement there appears to have been come
detection ; but at the polls the opposition
against the successful ticket was altoRether
ipoonsiderable In the ranks OF laboEs on che