USA > California > San Francisco County > San Francisco > History of the San Francisco Committee of vigilance of 1851 : a study of social control on the California frontier in the days of the gold rush > Part 33
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79 The effort at rescue was told by Senator Charles N. Felton, who had immediate information on the subject, although he was not an actual spec- tator (Grass Valley Union, 1917, Jan. 28, copied from an article by J. H. Wilkins, in the San Francisco Bulletin). See also Downie, Hunting for Gold, 145-153; Royce, California, 368-374; Popular Tribunals, I, 587; Illustrated History of Plumas, Lassen and Sierra Counties, 445-447. The affair was condemned as disgraceful ( Alta, 1851. July 14 ?; ). The news- paper index in the California State Library has the following entries under the "Downieville Hanging": Alta, 1851, July 9 %; San Francisco Argo- naut, 1877, July 14 11; Aug. 11 1/3; 1878, Sept. 28 31; Sonora Democrat, 1877, July 28 1/5; San Francisco Post, 1878, Aug. 10 1%; 1895, Sept. 21 91; Shuck, Bench and Bar of California, ed. of 1901, p. 273.
80 Papers, 360, 829. A later Committee was mentioned in Alta, 1854, May 24 24.
386
Vigilance Committee of 1851
The press of the state wrote of the Downieville tragedy as briefly as possible, but it stands to this day as the most terrible example in California of the deeds that are possible in a state of society in which the habitual failure of their legal safeguards has aceustomed even decent men to regard lynch law as a legiti- mate expression of the law of self-preservation.81 The majority of the men in California did so regard lynch law in the decade of which we write. The emergencies of the transition period had foreed it upon them as the sole restraint of criminals. A little later the impotence of their loeal courts had influenced them to continue the precedent and had finally resulted in the open demand for popular action that had been voieed by the press of the state.82
The Vigilance Committee of San Francisco and the allied organizations in the interior were not primarily responsible for the creation of this spirit. It had found previous expression in many crises of American life, and in every social group that braved anarchy and terrorism within that El Dorado whither the flag of the Union had failed to carry Federal, state, or local authority. It continued to express itself within those same groups when established authority still failed to give protection to life and property; it was abroad in San Francisco months before the Committee was organized; it asserted itself in un- mistakable terms during the early days of June; and it threat- ened to break forth in riot and bloodshed at any moment of supreme tension.
What the Committee did ereate was an organization to combat the dual dangers that arose from inefficient administration on the one hand, and from mob vengeance on the other, by interposing
81 Juanita was not the only woman killed by a California mob. A Negress who set fire to a hospital near Stockton was whipped so severely that the punishment proved fatal, perhaps because she was soon to become a mother (Saint-Amant, Voyages 421; Popular Tribunals, 1, 522-523).
82 This point of view was frankly expressed in a letter from C. Hix, a justice of the peace, in Placer Times and Transcript, 1852, May 9.
387
Problems and Methods of Administration
between those forces a small group of representative men who were willing to assume public responsibility for deliberate vio- lation of the letter of the law, but who remained faithful to their personal interpretation of the spirit of the law and adopted methods so acceptable to their local communities that their ver- diets superseded the vindictive clamor for stripes and death.83 Stripes and death they sometimes inflicted, but the records of the Committee of San Francisco, and the far less complete notices of the deeds of the out-of-town associations show that, with few exceptions, the men who formed these permanent and recognized associations accorded fair trials, imposed just punishments, and held themselves aloof from wanton cruelty.
83 In describing the development of popular juries in California, Hittell said: "It was what was known at first as lynch-law and afterwards as vigilance committee law" (California, II, 674). Coleman said that the Committee seized upon the forces of a mob, arrested them, and utilized their powers in regular form, systematically and coolly ("San Francisco Vigi- lance Committees," Century, XLIII [1891], 148). "La Comité de Vigi- lance est le Lynch Low régularisé, modifié, amélioré" (Holinski, La Califor- nie, 128). “Vigilance Committee, Gesellschaft welche sich zur Aufrechter- haltung der bürgerlichen Ordnung gebildet und zu dem Zwecke häufig die Handhabung der Justiz, unter Anwendung des kürzesten Process-Verfahrens, selbst übernimmt" (Karl Rühl, Californien, 1867, p. 283).
CHAPTER XVIII
'51 TO '77
Whatever may have been the ideals of the members of the Committee of Vigilance or the self-restraint imposed by their methods, we cannot intelligently appraise their work until we inquire whether or not the Committee exerted any abiding influence towards the restraint of crime and the improvement of society. In doing so we encounter an exceedingly difficult problem.
Owing to the lack of official eriminal statistics, the eontem- porary newspapers furnish the only available source of infor- mation, and their aceounts, at best, are incomplete and inadequate. Occasional statistics for San Francisco can be gathered from periodical reports of the reeorder's court published in the Herald and in the Alta California.1 From the first of May, 1850, to the middle of July, 1851, a total of 3507 cases, an average of about 240 a month, were tried before the recorder. Statistics were also published from time to time covering the period from June 15 to December 31, 1851, with the exception of the month of October.
These give approximately 375 cases per month, showing that there was no improvement in the total number of arrests, though by far the larger number were for petty offenses and violation of license ordinances. During July, August. and September few cases were sufficiently serious to be referred to a higher court. The Herald of September 15 stated: "Crime has most sensibly diminished throughout the State, and no execution has taken place, either here or in the interior, sinee the sailing of the last steamer. . . . For two months there has not been a murder, a burglary or a robbery with force committed in the city." Later
1 Herald, 1851, July 17 33; Aug. 15 %; Sept. 15 %; Alta, Oct. 8 %; Dec. 9 3% ; 1852, Jan. 3 3%.
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'51 to '77
reports indicated that conditions were constantly changing.2 In April, 1852, the grand jury took a week's recess for lack of cases on the calendar, although the average of arrests, from January 1 to May 31, was 353. In July, 1853, the grand jury found thirty- three indictments, a number considered low for a city of 50,000 inhabitants. In 1854 the arrests for April, May, and June aver- aged 400. In 1855 they were 509 for February and March.
Many generalizations have been made of the disorders occur- ring in California during this period, but accurate statistics have never been collected. It is said that at some time before 1855 the district attorney of San Francisco told a jury that during the previous four years there had been 1200 murders and only one legal execution in the city.3 I have been unable to find the orig- inal report of this speech, but the figures are often quoted as reliable. J. S. Hittell wrote that over a thousand homicides had been committed in San Francisco between 1849 and 1856, but he failed to give the sources of his information.4 T. H. Hittell cited the California Chronicle of December, 1855, as stating that in the state at large, during the preceding eleven months, five hundred and thirty-five homicides had occurred, and forty-nine hangings by mobs, but only seven legal executions.5
2 See Herald, 1852, April 26 3/1; June 6 %; Alta, 1853, July 31 3%; Herald, 1854, May 4 24; June 3 3; July 7 %; 1855, April 2 31. The report of the grand jury for November, 1853, lamented an increase of crime, and noted that while the county jail held forty prisoners in March, 1851, the number had been trebled in March, 1853 ( Alta, Nov. 29 34).
3 See Helper, Land of Gold, 29, 253, 298; B. Brierly, Thoughts for the Crisis, 1856, p. 9; Popular Tribunals, I, 131. It was explained in the Phoenix, 1858, Feb. 14 13, that about three years earlier, H. H. Byrne had spoken of 200 and the papers had misprinted the number as 1200. The Phoenix was too scurrilous to deserve credence on any subject (see infra p. 402), and this paragraph may or may not contain a hint of truth. The single execution is described in Popular Tribunals, I, 135, 746-747.
4 J. S. Hittel, San Francisco, 243. The Herald, 1854, Sept. 9 24, spoke of 2000 murders which had taken place in the state since Jauuary, 1849.
5 Hittell, California, III, 462. The Alta, 1856, Jan. 18 3%, quoted, with- out contradiction, a statement in the New York Express, 1855, Dec. 12, to the effect that in the preceding ten months there had been 489 murders in California, 6 executions by sheriffs and 46 lynchings by mobs. See also infra, p. 397 note 30.
390
Vigilance Committee of 1851
In the dearth of official summaries the following paragraph published in the Herald, April 14, 1852, becomes a matter of interest :
The idea is very generally entertained that the number of sudden deaths by accidents or violence is very great in this city. This, however, is incorrect, as the records show that but twenty-eight inquests have been held during the past eight months. For a city so large this is quite a small number.
This brief report of the coroner covered the period from August, 1851, to March, 1852, during which the influence exerted by the Committee of Vigilance was a most stern reality. It showed an average of less than four deaths a month from accident and violence combined. If any reliance whatever can be placed on the figures quoted from other sources, it also indicated that the immediate result of the rule of the Vigilantes was a diminution of crime that deserves respectful attention.
The acceptance and repetition by contemporary writers of the current summaries of erime is conclusive evidence that the estimates were not at variance with the facts as to the existing conditions. Sinister as they are, they do not betray the darkest menace that overhung the state, for the youthful commonwealth had become a prey to despoilers far more dangerous than James Stuart and his accomplices or successors in crime. The latest plots were not hatched in the dens of Sydney Valley, but in the primaries, in the lobbies of the capitol, and in the halls of the national Congress. While business men were struggling with fires and floods, with unsettled land titles, with an unsound bank- ing system, with feverish speculation and delirious panies, the political schemers from the Southern plantations and from Tam- many Hall had not wasted a moment since the summer of '49. It is no exaggeration to say that every interest in California except theirs trembled from hour to hour above quicksands of shifting fortune. Placer mining showed signs of speedy exhaus- tion, and quartz mining was still in the experimental stage; the
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391
'51 to '77
agricultural methods familiar to farmers from the East were unsnited to the seasons of the Pacific Coast; and no great irri- gation undertakings were possible while land titles were little more secure than a gambler's stake. The commercial markets, depleted on one day by a fire or by an unexpected demand, were glutted on the next by the arrival of laden clippers from New York, and the caprice of public auction was the only standard of prices. The value of real estate in the cities rose and fell beyond all power of anticipation. Mannfacture was almost pro- hibited in a district that had developed no cheap or dependable supply of building material, fuel, or labor.6
The only stabilized asset in the state was official patronage, and the exploitation of a people absorbed in financial adventures and unambitious for political preferment. This exploitation was conducted with a persistency of purpose, a skill in organization, and an utter abandonment to corruption that turned party con- ventions into a farce, dominated elections by bands of shoulder strikers and repeaters, and invented ballot boxes that served the bosses exactly as his magie hat serves the stage magician.7 Ama- teur politicians were helpless in such hands. They passed ordi- nances to regulate gambling, drinking, and social disorder,8 built their jails, and even elected many incorruptible magistrates, but every sporadic effort at reform was frustrated by the intrigue that kept the tools of the bosses in the strategie positions of administration and finance.
The Vigilance Committees, though they had certainly cou- tributed to the safety of particular communities, had nowhere
6 1854 and 1855 were years of disastrous failures. For financial and political conditions, see J. S. Hittell, San Francisco, 208-330; T. H. Hittell, California, III, 423-459; Bancroft, California, VI, chaps. 23-26; VII, chap. 8; Royce, California, 377-501.
7 The "patent, double back action ballot box" is described and illus- trated in Popular Tribunals, II, 1-21.
8 San Francisco passed various ordinances framed to close saloons at midnight, to suppress houses of ill fame and to control gambling, but it was almost impossible to avoid unconstitutional provisions, or to secure convie- tions. See, for instance, the Alta, 1854, March 10 %; April 6 %; May 3 21.
392
Vigilance Committee of 1851
succeeded in effecting any lasting reforms in local polities or in local courts. In most places their careers were brief, although the title, at first generally respected because of the character of the original Vigilantes, was often adopted by impromptu assemblies which formed hasty organizations to inflict impetuous punishments. But the men who led in the Committees of Vigil- ance constantly reappeared as leaders in other forms of civic activity. In San Francisco, for instance, they showed their continued interest in public affairs by constant service on the grand jury. As late as 1855 six former Vigilantes were on the grand jury in July, eight in the following November, three or more in January, 1856, and five in March.º Often they acted as foremen, signing to the reports of these authorized bodies the same names they had fearlessly attached to the incriminating documents filed by "No. 67. Secretary." Thus they continued their protest against political graft and political lassitude, against supervisors who robbed the city, merchants who shirked service on trial juries, and jurors who acquitted prisoners in the face of direct evidence of guilt. One censorious foreigner who re- sided in the city in 1852 wrote that the grand jury was the only body in California which spoke its feelings and opinions fear- lessły.10
By the spring of 1854 crime was again rife in San Francisco, burglaries had increased beyond all precedent, and in addition to the petty thieves, groups of determined squatters attempted to hold illegal possession of disputed tracts of land. To meet
9 Reports of grand juries, and lists of jurors may be found as follows: 1851, Herald, August 1 33; 4 33 ;. 5 24; Sept. 10 24: 30 24: Oct. 2 3%: Nov. 29 % ; Dec. 3 23.
1852, Alta, March 28 35; April 7 3% ; Herald, April 26 91; May 29 4; 30 23 : Alta, Dec. 1 2%; 10 23; 11 (from clipping ). 1553, Alta, July 31 26; Oct. 1 1 ;; Nov. 29 35.
1854, Alta. Feb. 5 16, 17 23; April 2 24; June 4 24; 14 24; Aug. 6 94; 11 %; 19 % ; Oct. 1 24.
1855, Herald, April 1 23 ; Alta, Aug. 1 24; Dec. 2 1/2.
1856, Alta. Feb. 2 24; April 6 33.
10 C'alifornia [by Huutley], II, 60.
393
'51 to '77
the menace of these lawless "settlers" and to check the armed conflicts that sometimes ensued, the landholders formed an "Association for the Protection of the Rights of Property, and the Maintenance of Order," adopted a formal organization, and appointed an executive committee of thirteen. About a thousand members enrolled and announced that their object was to sustain the law. They denied having any connection with the Committee of Vigilance, but many former Vigilantes were conspicuous in the meetings.11 The proceedings were generally confused and inharmonious, and the association disbanded without any notable achievement. The San Francisco Herald appeared to favor the movement, but the county judge, T. W. Freelon, took pains to warn the grand jury that rumors were abroad of a protective association of landowners which required prompt suppression. "San Francisco has had one Vigilance Committee," he said. "It is past ! and let the dead past bury its dead. It must have no other. Let there be Revolution or Law."12
The sentiments expressed by Jndge Freelon were by this time gaining adherents throughout the state. The papers as a rule discouraged the continuance of Committees of Vigilance, and emphasized every hopeful symptom of increasing order. One pioneer of Placerville said that by the spring of 1853 "society commenced forming," and that the better element there con- cluded that promiscuous hanging should stop, organized a party to support the law, and in one instance held off an angry mob,
11 Current disorders and the need of better protection were noted in the Herald, 1854, May 4, 31; May 23 31. On June 2 the editor said: "The Vigilance Committee was scarcely ever more necessary than at present." The meetings of the Association were held June 5, 6, 7, 9, and perhaps later (Herald, June 6 24; 8 31; 10 %; Annals 541). The following former Vigi- lantes were prominent in the movement : C. R. Bond, C. L. Case, J. F. Curtis, J. P. Manrow, Dr. Samuel Merritt, H. M. Naglee, John Parrot, John Perry, Jr., A. G. Randall, Michael Reese, William Sharon, S. Tesehemacher, S. R. Throckmorton, D. S. Turner, J. P. Van Winkle, Ferdinand Vassault, J. C. Ward, Robert Wells, F. A. Woodworth, S. E. Woodworth, and possibly Louis Cohn [L. Cohen?] and J. C. George. A counter organization of "Settlers" was reported in the Herald, June 16 %.
12 Herald, 1854, June 14 34.
394
Vigilance Committee of 1851
rescued the suspected murderer, and escorted him to Coloma, where he was lawfully tried and executed. Thereafter there "was no more lynching in El Dorado County."13 It is to be hoped that one county, at least, was so soon purged of disorder. In other parts of California lynchings still occurred.14 The papers, however, reported them with increasing condemnation, and public disapproval was expressed with increasing vehemence. In the spring of 1854 the grand jury of Calaveras County in- dieted the men who had participated in the lynching of a horse thief, but the writer has been unable to discover that they were ever brought to trial.15 In January, 1855, there were several illegal executions in the mines, which prompted the editor of the Alta to write :16
The Vigilance Committee had an influence from which California has not recovered to this day. Its influence for good was speedy; but because its immediate influence was good, its remote influence has been so many times the worse. Life and property were more safe during the days of the Vigilance Committee, and we do not design to find any fault with the members of it now. Those were trying times; and as the law failed to punish, many good men engaged in that which they could not be brought to look upon in ordinary times without abhorrence.
A few months later, after mobs in Amador County had made savage reprisals upon Mexicans because of the murder of an American, the residents of Butte City met in mass meeting to protest against such action on the part of a "purported Vigilance Committee." In reporting the episode the editor of the Alta California said :17 "The name of a Vigilance Committee should
13 Norton, Life and Adventures, 293.
14 For references on criminal conditions, see supra, p. 127 note 32; Ban- croft, California, VII, 191-219; Popular Tribunals, I, 515-576; History of Nevada County, 115-117; Michael Kraszewski, Acts of the "Manilas" ... at San Juan in 1866. 1878 (MS in the Bancroft Library).
15 Herald, 1854, April 22 %.
16 Alta, 1855, Jan. 27 %. Defense of that action, or a similar incident at Michigan City, was made in the Herald, Feb. 11 23.
17 Alta, 1855, Ang. 31 %. Earlier reference to this lynching was made in the Alta, Aug. 13 21.
395
'51 to '77
never be mentioned except as a terrible remedy employed in the past, when the impunity with which crime was committed led well meaning men to do what, on sound reasoning, cannot be justified." According to a later issue, society was "settling down, in spite of occasional lynchings ; public gambling was dis- appearing; vice was restrained by law, and the Sabbath was more generally observed.18
The dangers that inevitably attended the prolonged activities of Vigilance Committees received attention from the grand jury of Tuolumne County in October, 1855. An interesting extract from its report is to be found among the documents printed in the Appendix.19 Not long thereafter a murderer was lynched at Columbia, Tuolumne County, and in editorial comment the Alta said :20 "There was a time when Lynch-law in California seemed to some extent justifiable, when San Francisco and the state were full of cut throats, who could not readily be punished in any other than a summary manner-but that time, if it ever existed, has long since passed away." Strong resolutions condemning the lynching were passed by residents of the vicinity, and the grand jury indicted eight of the men responsible, but no effective prose- cution followed.
Study of the newspapers thus shows that publie opinion more and more condemned the appeal to lynch law, although there were times of decided reaction. For example, when the San Francisco grand jury for March, 1855, severely arraigned the powerful but secret forces that were corrupting the admin- istration of the city, the editor of the Herald hailed the report as a reminder of the "good and vigorous days of the Vigilance Committee," and fervently ejaculated, "May such times come again, for we want them sadly."21 The press, to be sure, took
18 See Alta, 1855, Oct. 21 31. Sunday closing, Aug. 9 28; Nov. 1 %.
19 See infra, p. 472.
20 Alta, 1855, Oct. 24 1; Dec. 17 23; Popular Tribunals, I, 548-553. 21 Herald, 1855, April 22 21.
396
Vigilance Committee of 1851
pains to mention every indication of inereasing tranquility, but in spite of optimistie editorials there was eonstant disorder.22
The most wanton offenders were the underlings of the politieal bosses, for money and influence could protect any man, no matter how heinous his offense. In November, 1855, Charles Cora. a gambler, quarreled with William H. Richardson and shot him on the streets of San Francisco. It was a cold-blooded murder, the dead man was the United States Marshal, but Cora was a protégé of the political machine, and every one knew that money and influence would be lavished to seeure his acquittal.23
For three years the members of the Committee of Vigilanee had hoped for protection and justice from their magistrates, and had refrained from open interference with the administration of the law, while the mysterious Committee of Thirteen guarded their secrets and kept alive the spirit of vigilanee. One of the old Committee, however, was not silent; James King of William had started his Evening Bulletin before Richardson was shot, and had inaugurated in it a fearless and vehement crusade against the corruption that ruled the state. He struck from the shoulder, heavy blows that spared neither high nor low. After the murder of Richardson he spoke editorially of a rumor that the Committee of Vigilanee might be reorganized. He deprecated taking that step, if it might in any way be avoided, but he most violently advocated hanging any sheriff or deputy who might treacherousły allow the murderer to escape.2+
It is very probable that a revival of the Committee was dis- cussed at this time. Cora made affidavit that on the night of the shooting an association of citizens seeretly met to consider his ease and decided to hang him if he should be acquitted by a
22 " To walk the unfrequented streets in this city, at a late hour of the night unarmed, is as dangerous as threading a forest infested by a war party of hostile Indians" ( Alta, 1855. Oct. 4 31).
23 Alta, 1835, Nov. 19 31.
24 San Francisco Bulletin. 1855, Nov. 20 21; 22 91.
397
'51 to '77
jury ;25 and one talesman, James Davis, was excused from jury service when he testified that he had met with about a dozen others to consider whether the rules of the old Committee called for action in the existing emergency.26 The decision had been in the negative, but the Alta significantly asserted that San Francisco would watch the trial, and that if conviction proved possible lynch law would be "done away with.''27
The trial was a farce that exhibited every mockery of justice possible in an American criminal court. Cora was jauntily de- fiant; his counsel were the most eloquent in the city; one jury- man made public the fact that he had been offered a bribe by the defense; and every canon of decency was outraged by the attempt to influence the jury by a sentimental plea based on the devotion to the prisoner of the wealthiest and most notorious member of the San Francisco demimonde. When the result, as anticipated, was a disagreement, the Alta forgot its late abhor- rence of popular tribunals and prophesied that lynch law would quickly be the desperate resort of a city where life could be protected only at the point of a pistol.28
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