Year: 1875

WIN tHat Vi dUOlHeT journal. SuCn DuS-
Mess transaction is OF common occur
renee, and generally attracts no more at
tention than would the sale or transfer of
an equal amount of investment of any
other character. But in the sale and
transfer of the Sacramento Union com
pleted last week, and the disappearance
from the field of journalism of newspa
per of such widespread influence. there
is something SO out Of the common order
of such transactions, that we feel con-
strained to pause and inquire the causes
which have led to such a result.


These we find partially set forth in the
last issue OF the Union, on Saturday,
The language there chosen is temperate,
the causes which have led to the sale
calmly set forth, and there is nothing
said at which offence can be taken, unless
it is done by those citizens of Sacramento
at whose instance the purchase and sale
were made. Yet we are not satisfied with
"The Explanation," after reading it,


No doubt this explanation is correct tc
a certain extent, yet it cannot be over.
looked that beyond the loss of confidence
on the part of the citizens of Sacramento


City, what is set forth in the article tc


which we allude are not things OF to-day
The decadence of the mining sections is
q thing which reached its lowest stage
years ago, that interest remaining about
stationary for several years while agri-
culture, which creates a thrifty and per.
manent class Of citizens, has been steadily
on the increase. A permanent popula-
tion gives better support to newspapers
than does the transient class which Is
here to-day and there tomorrow, as the
subscription list Of any journal will amp
ly prove.


In the onion of the 10Th, the last mum
Der but one issued, we find the following
sentence in an article discussing Buffers
Telegraph Bill "They see that if the
Government goes into the telegraph bust
ness, the newspapers that are now the
defenders Of the people and the opponents
of railway thieves, would be crushed and
superseded all over the country as the
Union has been in this State, by brood
oJ journals subsisted on small fraction
Of the subsidies of the corporations, and
maintained at the expense of the public
for the single purpose Of assisting the
railways to steal and to hide" This,
when stripped of its surplus verbiage,
tells the whole story. In its warfare up
on the corporations, or perhaps we should
rather say the corporation, for wherever
the Union started out it was pretty sure
to wind up with reference and applica-
ton to the Central Pacific, it never, until
its very last issue, would admit that its
opponents were possibly swayed by hon
orable motives, or that there might be
" honest differences Of opinion upon every
question of public policy" In the osti-
nation of those having its conduct in
charge, every public man who did not
join hands with it in its views in rofcr-
ence to the relations between the railways
and the people, was "railroad tool" q
" creature of the monopoly"--or some
other appelation of the same signiication
was ap lied to him, while those journals
which did not endorse and applaud its
views to the echo came in for an equal
of vitupcraton. 1t used its
widespread influence to organize the ele-
ments Of a party having for its assumed
object the correction of railroad abuses,
and had those whom it helped elect to
Legislative position been statesmen in
stead of dcmagogues, some wholesome
legislation might have been carried
But in their abjcct fear of the power that
had made them, the creatures whom the
changes in the current Of popular opin-
ion brought to the surface did not dare
allow reason or justice to temper their
acts. Fortunate it was for the State that
it had higher body whose election was
not due to the influence Of an ephemeral
excitement, to check the folly of those
whose sole seeming aim was to court the
Unfon'S and popular favor, in total disre-
gard Of consequences. But the questions
being TINS brought into the halls of legis-
lation, the ultra demands Of the Union
satellites became known, and il was at
once apparent that they were conceived in
either hatred or folly, and not in the de-
sire to minister to the welfare of the
State at large. So soon as it became APP
parent that it was selfish ends by which
1t had been actuated, then public conf
dence in it was lost. 1t is to this fact,
and none other, that the Union is "crush-
cd and supercedod," whilo the "chicka-
dees" continue in the even tenor Of their
way.


Under its new management the Union
will enter upon line of journalism es-
different from that in which it
has been heretofore employed. 1t will
be missed, to greater degree, than
would any other journa! published on this
Coast. For nearly quarter of century
it has been the leading paper of the State,
and during that long period it remained
under the same proprictorship. The men
who esta blished it in 1851, continued to
control its destinies, until its vagarios
drove away patronage to that degree that
eft it no longer self-sustaning. AS a
newspaper it could not be surpassed, and
when great questions were under consid-
sration, the weight Of its powerful infiu-
ancc was generally given 'on the right
side. In the war for the Union it was
like beacon set upon hill to the friends