USA > California > San Francisco County > San Francisco > San Francisco, a history of the Pacific coast metropolis, Volume I > Part 28
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At that time street work was paid for by warrants drawn on the city treasury. These warrants required the signature of the mayor and the comptroller to render them valid. It was also required that they should have the name of the creditor. In order to save trouble the comptroller was in the habit of signing a number of blanks, which were bound in books, and he appears to have had no difficulty in inducing the mayor to also attach his signature. These were left in the care of the
Harry Meiggs and His Schemes
The Long Wharf
Meigg's Energy in Opening Streets
Making Rascality Easy
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clerk of the comptroller, a particular friend of Meiggs, who, when occasion arose, filled in the blanks intrusted to his care. In some way Meiggs became possessed of one of these books of blanks, which he applied to his own use. He had no diffi- culty in doing so, as there was no money in the street fund at the time, a fact which made the offer of the scrip as collateral seem perfectly natural. The extent of his borrowings upon this fraudulent security is not known, but it is said that he was called upon to meet interest payments aggregating $30,000 a month.
"Honest" Harry Melggs in Trouble
The singular feature of the transaction is the failure of his borrowings, which were sometimes effected at the rate of ten per cent per month, to excite suspicion. Perhaps the appellation which he had in some manner earned of "Honest Harry" helped to blindfold his victims, who were numerous. In addition to using the scrip as collateral Meiggs, driven by his necessities, entered on a career of forgery, the indorsement of promissory notes being his specialty. He continued his practices for some time, being fertile in expedients, but in the autumn of 1854 he was called upon to make payment to the banking house of Lucas, Turner & Co., of which W. T. Sherman was then manager, and who insisted upon the reduction of his obli- gation to $25,000. He managed to procure an indorsement or acceptance from a house, whose headquarters were in Hamburg, which was duly accepted by the bank which held a mortgage on Meiggs' home on the northeast corner of Montgomery and Broadway streets and some $10,000 of the fraudulent warrants to secure the $25,000 balance. The securities given to the Hamburg concern were soon discov- ered to be worthless and the firm failed.
It was impossible to conceal the facts any longer, and on October 6, 1854, with the assistance of his brother, John G. Meiggs, who only a month earlier had been elected comptroller, he escaped on a vessel ostensibly engaged for a cruise about the bay and made his way to Chile. His liabilities were about $800,000, and for a long time it was generally supposed that he had carried away with him about a quarter of a million dollars, but he subsequently asserted that when he arrived in Valparaiso he had only $8,000 and that before he got a fresh start in life he was reduced to the extremity of pawning his watch.
Meiggs was a versatile man, and demonstrated his ability by engaging in rail- road building in Peru. He obtained contracts for the construction of some 800 miles of road in that country, from which he netted an enormous sum, his wealth being estimated at fully a hundred million. With the return of prosperity a great yearning to revisit California took possession of him, and he induced his friends to put through the legislature a bill ordering that all indictments against him should be dismissed, and that future grand juries should refrain from reopening the cases against him. This extraordinary proceeding, which took place in 1873-74, called forth very little protest from the people, but the scandalous attempt was frustrated by the interposition of the veto of Governor Booth, and the state was saved the disgrace of openly condoning crime out of deference to wealth.
Legislature Condones Meiggs' Crimes
Flight of Meiggs
CHAPTER XXV
THE PIONEERS AND THE CRIMINAL CLASS IN THE FIFTIES
CAUSE OF THE VIGILANTE UPRISING-THE "HOUNDS"-KNOW NOTHING TROUBLES - ATTACKS ON FOREIGNERS-A TOWN WITHOUT POLICE-POLITICAL FRIENDS OF THE "HOUNDS"-THE VIGILANTE EPISODE OF 1851-COMPOSITION OF THE VIGILANCE COMMITTEE-HIGH HANDED METHODS-HANGING FOR STEALING THE COURTS AND THE LAWS-THE READY REVOLVER-CIVIC DUTY DISREGARDED-INDIFFERENCE OF THE RESPECTABLE CITIZEN- CONDITIONS IN 1855-56-SHOOTING OF RICHARDSON BY CORA-THE BULLETIN'S ATTACK ON CASEY-INTEMPERATE JOURNALISM-EDITOR OF THE BULLETIN MURDERED-CORA AND CASEY HANGED BY THE VIGILANTES- LAW AND ORDER PARTY-CONSTITUTED ANTHORITIES DEFIED-CORRUPTION AT THE POLLS-NUMERICAL SUPERIORITY OF THE BETTER ELEMENT-DAVID S. TERRY- POLITICAL ASPECTS OF THE VIGILANTE UPRISING.
Crime in Pioneer Days
HE intimate connection between the municipal mismanage- JOTYES + ment of San Francisco during the six or seven years fol- lowing the discovery of gold, and certain events which stand out prominently in the early history of the City, has OF SAN FR been obscured by the assumption that those drawn to Cali- fornia by the hope of mending their fortunes were largely composed of the criminal classes. There were . undoubt- edly many with shady records, and more whose adventuresome disposition tended to recklessness and crime, but it does not appear that at any time this element was too large to have been easily kept under control by the decent and orderly portion of the community, had not the latter been completely absorbed in the effort to get rich quick.
It was for the purpose of bringing out this fact clearly that the sequence of the narrative was interrupted and the recital of the doings of the so-called Vigilance Committees was reserved for this chapter. It will be seen as the narrative proceeds that crime and disorder were rampant between 1849 and 1856 because the "good" citizens utterly neglected their civic duties, and that they would not have been forced to resort to extra legal methods had they not permitted themselves to become engrossed in the struggle for wealth. That the well disposed always had the power to preserve order by the exercise of ordinary methods is proved by the celer- ity with which it was restored when a serious effort was made to do so, and the ease with which it was maintained when the citizens had their eyes opened to the fact that their practical acquiescence in a policy of indifference to official turpitude was responsible for the mischiefs inflicted upon the community.
A historian who has devoted many words to describing the performances of the
Neglect of Civic Duty
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Vigilance Committees tells us that the creation of what was known as the People's Party after the affair of 1856 resulted in making San Francisco the best governed city in America for several years, and that this change for the better was due "to carrying into the legitimate administration of municipal affairs the same pure and well intentioned spirit which had characterized the proceedings of the Vigilance Committee." He apparently was unable to perceive that the same degree of inter- est in civic affairs exhibited during several years after 1856 must have produced a like result had it been shown between 1849 and 1856.
The Hounds
The earliest trouble recorded was that growing out of the formation of a band of bad characters said to have been made up largely of ex-Australian convicts and disreputable members of the regiment of New York Volunteers, who came to Cali- fornia to assist the regulars in the work of conquest. By others we have been told that this regiment was composed of picked men, selected with especial reference to the settlement of the new territory by a class, whose help in the upbuilding of the new commonwealth would prove of the greatest value; but unless the "Annals" are misleading, they contributed a large quota to the organization known as "The Hounds," which was formed in 1848 and which, in its inception at least, seemed to have for its object the persecution of foreigners.
"Know Nothing" Troubles
In considering the depredations of this body it must not be forgotten that the gold discovery in California, synchronized with what was known as the "Know Nothing" movement in the East, and which during a considerable period took on large political proportions, and exhibited itself in a particularly aggressive form in California, where a governor and supreme court judges were elected by the native Americans. The bad feeling engendered by this anti foreign movement manifested itself in various ways. In the early rush of adventurers to California efforts were made to prevent others than Americans securing passage on vessels sailing from the isthmus for San Francisco, and at least one prominent army officer, General Persifer Smith, openly advocated the exclusion of all but Americans from the gold fields.
Attacks ou Foreigners
The Hounds in the beginning devoted themselves to assailing the people of Latin American origin in the City. There was at the time a considerable number of Chileans, Mexicans and Peruvians, many of whom were fresh arrivals. It was charged by the Hounds that the women of these people were grossly immoral, and that the colony lived in a disorderly and riotous fashion, but the methods of purifi- cation adopted by the reformers were not calculated to produce any desirable re- sult. The Hounds were accustomed to parading the streets with banners flying and drums beating, and the annalist tells us that these parades, which often ended with attacks on foreigners, were not discountenanced, "but were openly approved by good citizens."
Hounds Became "Regulators"
Had the Hounds confined their ontrages to foreigners they might probably have gone on unchecked for a longer period, but they broadened their operations and began to enter taverns, whose proprietors they robbed on occasion, but oftener made them become involuntary hosts of the gang. This met with disapprobation, but did not sufficiently arouse the people to the gravity of the situation, nor did they realize it until, as the result of an assault on the Latin American settlement a bystander, who it is said was not "properly" one of their number was shot and fatally wounded by one of the "greasers," the name applied to the Spanish speak- ing people by the ruffians, and for that matter by the community generally. The
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Hounds took summary vengeance on this occasion, and followed up their riotous proceedings by changing their name to that of the "Regulators" and on the fol- lowing Sunday, July 15, 1849, they made a daylight attack on the Chileans in their tents, seriously maltreating many of them.
At last the town was aroused. Demands were made upon Alcalde Leavenworth for the suppression of disorder, but the fact that he had no police at his service rendered him impotent. A mass meeting was called on July 16th and held in Portsmouth square, the leading spirit being Samuel Brannan. It resulted in the formation of a special police of 230, the command of which was given to W. E. Spofford. This body made short work of the matter. They apprehended twenty of the Hounds and placed them aboard the U. S. ship "Warren." Another meeting was held on the same day, at which Dr. Wm. M. Gwin and James C. Ward were unanimously elected associate justices to relieve the alcalde from the excessive responsibility imposed upon him, and Horace Hawes was appointed district attor- ney and Hall McAllister associate counsel. The arrested Hounds and their al- leged leader, named Roberts, were tried on the charges of conspiracy, riot, robbery and assault with intent to kill, and were fined and sentenced to ten years at hard labor.
The charge was made at the time that the Hounds were instigated to their ex- cesses by influential men who profited by the disorder they created, but the accusa- tion was not accompanied by specifications. That the disorderly band in many particulars resembled the gangs common in eastern cities at the time, and who usu- ally made their headquarters in the houses of the volunteer fire companies, and were available for carrying out the purposes of unscrupulous politicians there is no doubt. That the Hounds caused greater disorders, and were more disposed to viciousness than their Eastern prototypes, was due undoubtedly to the negligence of the people of San Francisco, who from the time when the gold rush began, lost sight of the necessity of adhering to recognized methods, and instead embraced the curious belief that irregular manifestations of wrath would prove more impressive and a greater deterrent of crime than systematic repression.
The example made of the Hounds did not produce results which conformed to the idea that spasmodic effort was more efficacious than persistent watchfulness and zeal in compelling the enforcement of the laws, for the criminal element con- tinued its depradations throughout the winter of 1849 and during 1850, and the early part of 1851. No additions of consequence were made to the police force, and the few men employed were poorly paid. The prisons provided were small and insecure, but they were not in much demand, as bail was accepted in the most serious cases; and when there were trials they failed to result in conviction. Up to 1851 no criminal had been executed for murder, although there were several who deserved hanging.
It can hardly be said that these results justified confidence in the efficacy of Vigilante methods. Those with criminal instincts were not deterred by the knowl- edge that a body of men met at intervals to receive complaints, and that good citi- zens were ready to respond when called upon to assist in suppressing lawlessness. There were frequent crimes but the committee was not aroused to action until an exceptionally bold thief, named John Jenkins, entered a store on Long Wharf and stole a safe, which he threw overboard from a boat when pursued. He was captured and the safe was recovered, and he was promptly tried by a jury of the
A City Without Police
Political Friends of the Hounds
Useless Spasmodic Efforts
Brannan as a Public Prosecutor
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Vigilance Committee, which had assembled when summoned by the tolling of the bell of the Monumental Engine Company. There were about eighty of the Vigi- lantes present, and their deliberations lasted about two hours, at the expiration of which he was condemned to death. The prisoner denied his guilt but the evidence against him was conclusive. The bell was tolled a second time and the assembled crowd was addressed by Samuel Brannan, who stated that Jenkins had been found guilty and had been sentenced to die within the hour on the Plaza. He asked if the committee's action was approved and great shouts of "aye" went up; only a few noes were heard.
Hanging of Jenkins
A procession was then formed and the mob proceeded to the Plaza. Up to this time there was no show of interference on the part of the authorities, and when they did finally interpose an objection it was ineffective, because, as subsequent events suggested, they were not entirely assured of their own safety. Jenkins was undoubtedly an ex-convict or what was called a "Sydney cove," and the committee believed that he was one of an organized gang of robbers responsible for numerous depredations. A coroner's inquest was held and it found that Jenkins had died by the violent means of strangulation "at the hands of and in pursuance of a pre- concerted action on the part of an association of citizens styling themselves a Com- mittee of Vigilance, of whom the following members were implicated by direct testimony: Captain Edgar Wakeman, William H. Jones, James C. Ward, Edward A. King, T. K. Battelle, Benjamin Reynolds, John S. Eagan, J. C. Derby and Samuel Brannan.
Stand Taken by Vigilance Committee
The verdict was never followed up by the authorities and the committee paid no further attention to it than to publish a full list of its members as a significant intimation that they were ready to assume responsibility for the act and to show that the methods of the extra legal body were approved by the most influential citi- zens of San Francisco. On this point there could not be much doubt, and that every member of the committee was proud of the part he took, and of bis associa- tion with the organization, which had avowed its purpose of putting a period to the reign of crime. Their firm stand resulted in greatly scaring the rogues infest- ing the town and many of them fled to the interior. Those under suspicion, who failed to fly were haled before the committee, which had conveniently resurrected a Mexican law forbidding the entrance of criminals. When contumacy was shown the committee imprisoned the defiant until arrangements could be made for their deportation.
The methods of the Vigilance Committee were as high handed as they were tem- porarily effective. They assumed the right to enter any person's premises in which they claimed to have good reason for suspecting that they would be able to secure evidence, which would substantiate their charges and help them to carry out their object. The authorities protested against the irregularity of the proceedings of the committee. The grand jury for the July term, when it made its reports ani- madverted upon the inefficiency of the law authorities, charging that the trials of criminals were unnecessarily protracted by postponements and otherwise, and ended up with a declaration that, while the acts of the committee were to be deplored, they were undoubtedly influenced by the best of motives and that on the whole what had occurred was for the public good.
It is almost superfluous to state that the qualified disapproval of the committee's irregularities had no influence, and that it was shortly afterward followed by more
High Handed Methods of Vigilantes
FORT GUNNYBAGS, HEADQUARTERS OF THE VIGILANCE COMMITTEE OF 1856
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action of a vigorous character. Two men, named Whittaker and Mckenzie, charged with burglary and arson, were arrested by the committee on the 20th of August and were promptly sentenced to death. This action brought forth a proclamation from Governor McDougal, who called upon all good citizens to unite for the pur- pose of maintaining the law. He was not a forceful man and his efforts were turned into ridicule by the publication of an anonymous circular, which quoted him as saying that he approved of the acts of the committee and that much good had resulted from them. The sheriff of the county, however, undertook to give effect to the proclamation by serving a writ of habeas corpus on the members of the com- mittee, who had Whittaker and Mckenzie in their custody, and they were surprised into delivering their prisoners to him. But the engine bell was promptly sounded, and as soon as a sufficient number of the Vigilantes could be assembled they recap- tured the accused men, who were hanged within seventeen minutes in the presence of the crowd which had assembled in the square when the usual alarm was sounded. The coroner's jury, as in the case of Jenkins, voiced a feeble objection to the irreg- ularity of the proceedings and there the matter ended for the present so far as San Francisco was concerned.
These exhibitions of mob violence were not confined to San Francisco. Like summary methods had been adopted in dealing with interior criminals. The first recorded lynching in the state took place in Santa Barbara, in 1848, where two men, who had killed a couple of miners in Tuolomne, and stolen their gold, were overtaken by a party organized to pursue them, and hanged by the sea. These lynchings were attributed to the gold discoveries, but a writer, Jeremiah Lynch, who made a careful investigation of the circumstances attending the killing of David C. Broderick by David Terry, commenting on the propensity of the Cali- fornians of pioneer days to take the law in their hands, emphatically dissents from the commonly accepted view that violence and disorder is a necessary attendant of what may be called "gold rushes," and to support his position points to the fact that Australia escaped the infliction, and that the comparatively recent opening of the Klondyke mining country in British Columbia did not result in breaking down the laws. He attributed their immunity from this particular form of violence to avoidance of the tendency to permit courts to override the laws. "We have the same laws," he said, "but with us the tribunals are superior to them; with the British the tribunals obey the laws and do not override them."
Theorizing respecting causes is a profitless occupation when for guesses we may substitute actual facts. We know that one of the vices of the time was the carrying of fire arms. Every man went "heeled." It is related that at one of the first sessions of the legislature it was the habit of the members to take off their pistols and lay them on the desks before them. The practice was so common it attracted no attention. The weapons were ostensibly carried for defensive pur- poses, but the fact that a pistol may be used offensively as well as defensively was lost sight of by those who assumed that it was necessary to go armed in order to cope with bad men. This fashion has been held responsible by some for the con- tempt into which the law fell during the early Fifties, but it is an insufficient explanation. Besides we have the recent example just quoted of the Klondyke, where fire arms were as common as they were in California in pioneer days without producing the same evil results.
Hanging for Stealing
Carrying of Fire Arms
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The true reason for the breaking down of the law is the one already pointed out. It was owing wholly to the utter disregard of civic duty by the so-called re- spectable element of society. This is freely admitted by historians, who have in- consistently defended the extra legal methods of the Vigilance Committee and assumed that the necessity of going outside the law was imposed upon good men. The ablest historian of California in dealing with the subject has told us that "in the unsettled condition of business and society, and the feverish rush for gold, few or none of the respectable classes of the community took sufficient interest in public matters to go to the polls, or to sit on juries." And he adds that as a con- sequence "the management of municipal affairs, and for that matter of national affairs also, in so far as they depended upon municipal representation fell into the hands of men of the vilest character, who had served an apprenticeship in New York and other hotbeds of political corruption."
Indifference of Respectable Citizens
The author who thus expressed himself lived near to the times of which he wrote and took part in some of its activities. His opportunities for learning the exact facts were unsurpassed, and his sympathies were wholly with the class that resorted to the extraordinary methods of the Vigilance Committee. It may be as- sumed, therefore, that he did not carelessly charge his fellow citizens with derelic- tion of duty; but while thus holding the respectable classes responsible for the existing condition he does not escape the error of putting the blame for the trouble on "the last straw that broke the camel's back," nor does he avoid the blunder of excusing a resort to violence, which might have been averted by the simple process of respectable citizens performing their civic duties.
Swift Punishment not a Deterrent
The prevalent assumption that examples of swift punishment would have a deterrent effect was not justified by experience. The criminal element was un- doubtedly cowed for a short time when the respectable citizens rose in their wrath, but it speedily forgot the lesson. In the first ten months of 1855 there were 489 murders committed in California, and there were only six legal hangings. On the other hand there were forty-six cases of summary punishment by the mob, and there was always a possibility of the machinery of the Vigilance Committee (for the interior in places had modeled itself on San Francisco and maintained like organizations) being put in motion. But thieves and violent men continued their practices, and politics remained as corrupt as they had been.
Conditions in 1955-56
It is not astonishing that there should have been a recurrence to the methods of 1849 and 1852, when the business depression of 1855 came. The flight of Harry Meiggs and the disreputable failures of a couple of important banking concerns created a state of frenzied apprehension, which was kept at white heat by the vigorous attacks of the press on municipal corruption. The journals of the early Fifties had not acquired the modern habit of sparing the past lives of officials, and confining their criticisms to the shortcomings of the immediate present. California was filled with men who had a past, and when one of that sort, and there were plenty of the kind in San Francisco, came up for public honors, or managed to creep into office, he was unsparingly dealt with.
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