| OCR Text |
Show B A Blackguard Fiction Writer A STORY with "The Gray Dawn" for its title, from the pen of Stewart Edward White, is B running its course through the Saturday Evening B Post. It is a history of early California days, B put out in the form of a novel. B As to the merits of the story as a novel we B have not read it carefully enough to judge, but B the history part is indeed high-class fiction. B Mr. White writes in an unfortunate time. Bj Twenty-five years ago his slanders upon the dead B would have met instant retaliation, could he have B waited a few years longer what he writes might B be received as reliable history. B In the early fifties the decent men of San Fran- B cisco utterly neglected their duties as citizens. B They avoided jury duty, they neglected to vote; B most of them were there merely to "make a B stake" and get out. The result was that many B tough men obtained places in the legislature and B in the city government of San Francisco. These B men were always in a hopeless minority, the rea- B son they were in power was because the real B citizens by their neglect permitted them to ob- B tain and hold their places. B About 1854 James King of William started a B "reform" newspaper called The Bulletin.. It was B a blackguard sheet from the first. Now, after B sixty years, no man could start such a newspa- B per as The Bulletin was in any fair-sized town B in the west and run it a year without being B It was not permitted in decent houses. B On the evening of the 4th of March, 185G, the B writer of this called at the house of that Mr. H Perrine, who married for his second wife the H mother of she who was Mrs. Grover Cleveland. B Mention was made of The Bulletin, whereupon B Mr. Perrine declared indignantly that is was a B disreputable sheet which he did not permit to B enter his house. B The writer sailed next day for New York, and B returning reached San Francisco on July 2nd fol- B lowing. B He found Perrine carrying a gun before Fort B Gunnysacks, a red-eyed "vigilante." B James King of William had been shot and B wounded and the surgeon through excessive treat- B ment had permitted the wound to kill him, and he B at once had become a martyr before whose mem- B ory those staid citizens, who so long had neglect- B ed all public duties, fell down in worship. B James Carey, a young man, for some offense B had served a brief term in a New York peniten- B tiary. When released, he sailed for San Francisco. B He had a friend who was a compositor on The Bui- B letin. This friend sought Casey and told him that B he had just set in type an article denouncing him. B Casey went to The Bulletin office, obtained an in- E terview with the editor, told him his name, ex- B plained that he had heard about the article and B had come to tell the editor that he was free to B publish anything about him since his arrival in B the city, but to beg him to let the New York rec- B ord rest because he had promised his old mother 1 that he intended henceforth to live an unright life. To this King told Casey that the article would be B published in full and wound up by ordering Casey B out of the o. 'ce. Hj Casey then told him that if he did publish the B article he would hold him personally responsible B and went out. fl The article was published that afternoon, to- Hj gether with an editorial CPlaJnlg that he had H I been threatened; sneered at the threats and stated for the benefit of enemies at what hour he would leave the office and exactly the route ho would take on his way homo. Casey met him, face to face, on the route and shot him through the shoulder. He died a few days later. Then King became at once a martyr and San Francisco in a day became an organized organ-ized frenzied mob. The foremost men in the city, such men as Baker, Broderick, Tecumseh Sherman, ho who was later Admiral Farragut, the bar and bench of the city and state, tried to stop the craze, but it ran its course. That year eastern merchants lost more California Cali-fornia debts than they had since " '49." Indeed, the city never recovered until the discovery of the Comstock awakened it from its half coma. , But Mr. White in his anxiety to make a flowery showing for the vigilance committee, goes into personalities. In his last article he says: "Colonel Ed Baker came forward to speak. The Colonel's gift of eloquence was such that in spite of his known principles, his lack of scruple, his insincerity, he won his way to a picturesque popularity pop-ularity and fame. Later he delivered a funeral oration over the remains of David Broderick that has gone far to invest the memory of that hard-headed, hard-headed, venal, unscrupulous politician with an aura of romance." There is not much to say to that except that the man who would seek to befoul the graves of those two men in that way is a disgrace to his race. The crime of both those men was that they were ready to die for their country, as both did die; the one at the hands of a skilled duelist, the other on the battlefield. The one, the close friend of Mr. Lincoln; the man who on the rostrum and In the senate was unmatched in eloquence, and who sealed his con victions with his heart's blood; the other, the stalwart, stal-wart, whose word and courage were never doubted doubt-ed by friend or foe; to call these heroes named up from the graves in which they have so long slept, only to try to cast reproach upon them, should cause any man who ever shook the hand of Stewart Edward White to go and get manicured mani-cured at onc.e, lest some taint should still remain upon his. |
