Year: 1871

we take this article:


The San Francisco vigilance com


mittee will always furnish evidence


against such movements, because it is


constantly brought forward TO Justify


violence. Good people who do not


understand what the condition of Cal


ifornil was in 1854, 1ashly conclude


that the remedy which was applicable


to cure the disorders of that extraor-


binary society may be safely adopted


in every community to extirpate evil,


and they wickedly invoke tempestu-


ous disturbance without considering
the elements that will rule it or the
ends which it might be made to sub


serve. San Francisco did not over
throw the civil government and set at
defiance all the constituted authorities
of the city and State because her DO
.litical government was distrusted as
dishonest, but her people set in mo-
ton the higher Law of self-defense, in
order to secure the immediate punish
ment of certain outlaws who had be-
come dangerous to life and property.


Robberies, burglalies and thefts had


become so common that business men
were no safer in their offices than their
property was secure in their vaults
and stores. A merchant was killed
and robbed ut his desk in the heart OF
the city; and an editor, who exposed
a piece of official rascality, was shot
down in the midst of his friends. The
courts were mistrusted. The authori-
ties confessed that the jury system left
criminals to go free as fast as they
were indicted. Well-known burglars
walked the streets anblushingly. Rob-
bers paraded themselves as though
their calling was one of the admitted
professions of the city. 1t was against
these classes that the vigilance COM
nittee was organized, and it was only
against these classes that it proceeded
to operate. 1t never for IL moment
pretended to be Il political movement,
nor did it in a single instance modest a
public officer for any supposed dishon-
esty in his public conduct. 1t even
respected Judge Terry, although nc
assaulted with . deadly weapon one of
its officers. The committee solamnly
declared that the people themselves
were responsible Ior political malad-
and they had a better
remedy for such evil at the ballot-box
than could bc effected by violent as
sanlt upon the officers. Nevertheless,
there are men who to-day abuse the
action OF the San Francisco vigilance
by proposing to initiate
what it had tOomuch sense to attempt.


A writer in the Times of yesterday,
who furnishes by the violence OF his
the best evidence of his own
untitness to be n member of any vigi-
lance committee. proposes to initiate
the people of San Francisco by hang
ing one hundred of the highest officers
in New Orleans to the lamp posts. Our
California friends will he sorely tempt
ed to regret that they ever formed a
vigilance committee if their well or
ganized and moderately conducted
is to be made the excuse
for murderous midnight assault upon
the entire lot of officers who have been
elected in Louisiana for after T" Mer-
chant has organized his mob and ex-
eeuted his victims, there will not be
prominent officer left to carry on the
in any of it's departments.
The good and the bad will all have
been destroyed by one sweeping and
ind:scIiminate act of madness.


Merchant y is mad, and Sam Hous-
ton said that madness is more to be
avoided than rascality for the fool
would rush into extravagances which
the knaye would avoid as ruinous.
Men who rashly propose vigilance
committees as the remedy for evils
which may be cured with ease at the
baliot-box, are like those inconsiderate
people who offer taste on blood to
the hungry wolf to stop its appetite
for slaughter. Violence destroys the
reason and overthrows the Judgment.
1t educates the weak to believe in
something besides argument and hon.
esty, 1t sets up the sword and the
bayonet as the arbiter Of our liberties
and our fortunes. Itarrests free speech.
criticism, and is the author
of theft. If it was here to-day, Mer-
chant would be in prison tonight.
And what is still worse, the young and
blooming generation, which is grow
ing up around us to make the county
better, would be dwarfed in their ed
ucation and wlletted to become the
spoilers of each other.


If Merchant knows of dishonesty,
he knows the instance and the man.
There are two ways for him to pro-
ceed first, by laying his information
before the Grand Jury, and, secondly,
by publishing the name and the facts.
Let us have something to 60 upon be-
sides this vulgar and ineendiary de-
and the REPUBLICAN will
lend helping hand to uproot the
knave. There are some people " no
challenge the chastity of all
the honesty of all men, and
the integrity of every officer. For
these characters we have no respect,
as they are generally unsuccessful lib
ertines, unsafe traders orunpurchased
L. 4