USA > California > San Francisco County > San Francisco > San Francisco, a history of the Pacific coast metropolis, Volume I > Part 31
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Criminal Ascendancy a Myth
And yet the evidence is indisputable that this fancied criminal ascendancy was a myth, and that the trouble was due to the failure of the better elements in the community to use the peaceful means at their command to exercise restraint. Instead of decency and respectability asserting itself it quickly submitted to the introduction of the worst vices of Eastern municipal politicians. An overwhelming majority of voters who were interested in maintaining good government, instead of exerting themselves to that end, allowed the Brodericks, and the broken down politicians of the Atlantic states and the South to conduct their affairs for
Green Papers a "Gold Brick"
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them, and the result was precisely the same, so far as misgovernment was con- cerned, as was witnessed in other sections of the Union where less fuss was made about such matters than in California, where love of the spectacular has been something like a passion ever since the discovery of gold.
Red shirts were worn in other cities, and disreputable rowdyism had flourished in places where the veneer of civilization was a little thicker than in San Fran- cisco, but no one thought of indicting the whole community on that account. Probably the mistake of making a target of the Pacific Coast city would not have been made had there not been shown, from the beginning, a disposition to regard as picturesque what was merely vulgar, and to assume that because a place is new that its population, no matter what its previous training, may safely disregard the conventions of established societies and revert to primitive conditions.
The critics East, West, North and South, had no hestitation whatever in 1856 about accepting San Franciscans at their own valuation. Then, as now, they were quite ready to believe that the community was out of the ordinary and might there- fore be a law unto itself. The word "atmosphere" had not yet been applied to conditions produced by relaxation of the rules which obtain in older communities, but San Francisco was universally considered as a queer town, peculiar in many respects, but on the whole very likeable, and not entirely bad even though its peo- ple sometimes did things that set the whole world talking, and shocked a great many who regard departure from the beaten track as a serious matter.
It was largely due to this estimate of San Francisco that the federal gov- ernment refused at any stage of the Vigilante uprising to directly interfere with its operations. The authorities at Washington were asked by the Law and Order people to intervene, and the governor set the machinery in motion to bring about that result, but the Washington politicians managed by one means or another to evade action. During the administration of Governor Downey in 1860 a bill was passed by the legislature, and approved by him to pay R. A. Thompson and Ferris Forman, who were sent to Washington to invoke assistance in putting down the Vigilance Committee. In the course of the debate over the matter statements were made which clearly established that it was not uncertainty concerning the propriety of intervening which held back the administration, but inability to de- cide whether intervention would interfere or help the cause which those at the head of affairs had most at heart.
But while the federal authorities on one pretense and another evaded their duty, there was no lack of sympathy for the advocates of law and order among the military and naval officers of rank on the coast. But they acted with circum- spection, and were evidently restrained by orders from Washington which tied their hands. Thus General John S. Wood, commanding the Pacific division of the U. S. army, when applied to by Governor Johnson on the 4th of June, 1856, for arms, answered that such a request could be granted only upon the authorization of the president. In the meantime, however, one of his subordinates at the pre- sidio, Lieutenant J. H. Gibson, although ordered by Wood to remain perfectly neu- tral had, on the requisition of Mayor Van Ness, promptly issued a quantity of ammunition. His indiscretion nearly caused him to lose his position, an active effort to have him cashiered being defeated with some difficulty.
The part played by Sherman in the days of the Vigilance Committee of 1856 illustrates the peculiarities of the situation. A long time subsequent to the upris-
San Francisco Atmosphere
Acceptance of California Verdict
Federal Authorities Hold Aloof
Erosion of a Duty
Sherman's Position
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ing he expressed the opinion that if he had been properly supported by the gov- ernor he would have been able through the instrumentality of the committee of citizens favoring law and order to bring the operation of the Vigilance Committee to a standstill, or that he could at least have succeeded in placing the movement in such a light that it would have lost the support of many who remained identified with the organization to the last. The point on which Sherman laid stress was the misleading of Johnson by such men as Terry, Howard and some others, who made him believe that the committee was weak and ready to give in, and that the proper method to pursue was to demand an unconditional surrender. The ex- lieutenant, it appears, was a believer in pacific methods, and advocated a compro- mise. It is perhaps significant that Volney E. Howard, who was appointed to suc- ceed Sherman, when the latter resigned the command of the militia in disgust, because he was not supported, and David S. Terry, later developed into pro- nounced secessionists and cast in their fortunes with the South at the outbreak of the Civil war.
Efforts to Effect a Compromise
The effort to bring about the compromise to which Sherman referred was in- stituted by a group of citizens at the head of whom were such men as Joseph B. Crockett, Frederick W. Macondray, Henry S. Foote, Martin R. Roberts, John Sime, James D. Thornton, James Donohue, John J. Williams and Bailey Peyton. This committee asked and obtained an interview with the Vigilance Committee and preferred among other demands that the writ of habeas corpus should be re- spected, and that all exhibitions of force should be dispensed with. This was on June 3, 1856, but nothing came of the meeting, the Vigilance Committee planting itself on the proposition that the Law and Order party should disband their forces, whereupon the governor withdrew his proclamation. Sherman after this inter- view accompanied the citizens committee to Benecia, where they met the governor, but the latter was by that time so completely under the influence of the men men- tioned that the moderate measures suggested were rejected and force was resolved upon to compel an unconditional surrender.
Solidarity of Vigilance Committee
The Vigilance Committee to all appearances acted as a unit, but there were occasional dissensions within the ranks. There was objection at times to the secrecy of proceedings, and the black list. The former was assailed as dangerous because it might lead to the same excesses which followed the exercise of arbitrary authority by the tribunals during the French Revolution, and the singling out of individuals for proscription on mere suspicion without giving them a trial, it was feared, might result in injury to innocent persons. But on the whole the Vigilance Committee was a harmonious body, and the majority of its members were pro- foundly convinced that the method to which they had resorted was the only one which could be depended upon to cure the troubles of San Francisco. There may have been some members whose motives were ulterior, but they were a small minor- ity, but candor compels the statement that they were not the least influential mem- bers of the committee.
Failure of Majority to Exercise its Power
The objects of the committee were stated in an address of the executive committee of the Vigilantes which after reciting various abuses, and dwelling with great particularity upon election frauds and ballot box stuffing, declared that "em- bodied in the principles of republican government are the truths that the majority shall rule, and that when corrupt officials fraudulently seize the reins of authority
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and designedly prevent the execution of the laws of punishment upon the noto- riously guilty, then the power reverts back to the people from whom it was wrested."
The declaration carries with it the admission that the majority had been negligent in its duties. Had it not been the minority could not have wrested power from the majority for it could have controlled at the polls as easily before 1856 as it did afterward, had there been half as much zeal displayed as there was when the People's party came to be a factor in politics.
Negligence of the Majority
CHAPTER XXVII
AFFAIRS AT LOOSE ENDS IN THE EARLY FIFTIES
THE PEOPLE NOT INTRACTABLE-BAD ELEMENTS NOT HARD TO CONTROL-VICES OF PIONEERS NOT OF THE HIDDEN SORT-HIGH LIGHTS ON SHORTCOMINGS FIXING RESPONSIBILITY FOR EVIL PRACTICES-PUTTING THE BLAME ON FOREIGNERS- THE GOLD SEEKERS-GROWING COSMOPOLITANISM OF THE CITY -- NEGLECT OF MUNICIPAL AFFAIRS-EVERYBODY BOARDED-PREVALENCE OF GAMBLING-THE GLITTERING BAR ROOMS-PORTSMOUTH SQUARE AND ITS SURROUNDINGS-GAM- BLING HOUSE PROPRIETORS GROW RICH -- REGULATING THE SOCIAL EVIL-A MIXED STATE OF AFFAIRS SOCIALLY-NO HOME RESTRAINTS-EARLY PHILOSOPHERS- PLENTY OF COLLEGE BRED MEN IN THE CITY-ATTEMPTS TO ERADICATE EVIL- PROGRESS TOWARDS ORDER.
ONCENTRATION of attention on the early political his- tory of San Francisco is apt to produce the impression C that the inhabitants of the City were a particularly in- tractable people who required the application of extraor- dinary measures to keep them within bounds. Much of + SEAL OF SA the evidence concerning this point is presented in a manner calculated to emphasize this view, but the im- partial investigator, ready to consider all the facts, is forced to conclude that great exaggeration has been indulged in by witnesses in order to justify their assumption that the resort to unusual methods to preserve order was necessary.
Some of the contradictions in the testimony have been pointed out in the chapters dealing with the Vigilance Committee and its operations. The testimony of one historian that four-fifths of the population was made up of honest and in- dustrious Americans has been cited, and his implied and expressed opinion that this better element could at all times have controlled the disorderly classes had they performed their civic duties with half the zeal with which they pursued their personal interests has been dwelt upon. The expression of such an opinion, while it seemed called for by the extraordinary exaggeration of the bad features of early . California life, to the logical thinker will always appear superfluous in the face of the attested fact, that in every instance when the better elements took the trou- ble to assert themselves, the criminally inclined, and the predatory politicians, were easily kept in check.
But the precise thinker is not in the majority. The most of those who have read of the Vigilante episodes of San Francisco have reached the conclusion that they were a necessary accompaniment of the development of a country whose first vigorous inhabitants were adventurous men who had cut loose from the ties of
Not an Intractable People
Bad Elements Easily Controlled
Misleading Circumstances
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settled communities and were disposed to be a law unto themselves. That there were many such is undeniable, and that they and their doings were much more in evidence than that of the majority who were not disposed to break away from the conventions of the world they left behind them is equally true; but their pres- ence and actions did not prove that the whole society was any more reckless than a procession of red-shirted firemen at about the same period in New York proved that all the people in that city were "Bowery Boys."
Oniy a Brief Episode
The annalist of San Francisco in telling of the first rush to California describes a condition of affairs in 1848 which has been taken as typical of a period, but which really endured but a short time. Telling of the desertion of the town when the news of the gold discovery at Sutter's fort reached it, and of the speedy growth which followed the great influx from the East, he says: "Everybody made money and was suddenly growing rich; nobody had leisure to think for a moment of his occupation; all classes gambled, the starched, white neck clothed professor of re- ligion and the bootblack." The description fitted San Francisco for a short period only. From the pages of the "Annals" and other sources we can easily extract the evidence that despite some staring external manifestations San Francisco rapidly put on the garb of the older sections of the country, adopting most of their virtues, and neglecting none of the things which contributed to the advancement of civil- ization.
Vices not Hidden by Pioneers
The men who made San Francisco their home also brought with them some of the vices of an older civilization, and these were accentuated in appearance by their refusal to conceal them. They disdained the hypocrisy which takes the form of hiding evils from the public gaze, and openly practiced vices that were equally common in other places, but were discreetly hidden behind doors. No one now seriously urges that this attitude was either admirable or desirable, and few will deny that the glittering saloons and their wide open doors, and easily accessi- ble gaming tables, converted many a man into a loafer who might have been a good citizen, had the temptations to stray from the path of sobriety and industry not been so numerous; but it must be borne in mind that in the early Fifties, in most sections of the Union, puritanical notions concerning gambling and drinking were not prevalent, and that San Francisco's distinctiveness in this regard was chiefly due to ostentatious disregard of appearances.
High Lights on Shortcomings
We have been too prone in thinking of early San Francisco to place in the fore- ground of our mental picture the gilded gin shops, and the painted harlots, while we have relegated to the rear the churches and schools and other outward evidences of modern progress. The meretricious desire to find a peculiar atmosphere is responsible for the fact that the El Dorado and other gambling places in the City were talked about at home and described in letters to the East, while little or no mention was made of the soberer side of life. But the omission is repaired by the testimony of the daguerreotypes reproduced in this volume, in which structures devoted to religion and learning are conspicuous in the landscape.
Serious Side of Life not Neglected
At the risk of imperiling the picturesqueness of the narrative it must be told at the outset that the serious side of life was not wholly subordinated, and that the churches and schools had their earnest supporters, and that they were the saving salt of a community, undoubtedly over much given to struggling for wealth. The part they played, as is fitting, will be described later on. They were the instruments which imperceptibly, but nevertheless efficaciously worked toward the
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regeneration of the City, and to appreciate their work at its real value it is neces- sary to first portray as faithfully as possible the difficulties with which they had to contend.
One of the causes assigned by historians when endeavoring to account for the corruption of Rome in the days of the Empire was the lure of gain its wealth held out to foreigners. The assumption predicates a state of purity in the Romans which never existed. It implies that the natives were spoiled by the people who flocked in upon them from the whole of the known world of the period when in reality they merely exchanged their uncouth habits and brutal customs for refined vices. Had they been what the historians assume, a really moral people, they would not so easily have adopted the vices of the foreigner; they would have assimilated his good qualities and rejected the bad ones which he brought with him. It has been the custom during the ages to put the blame for shortcomings on the stranger. It was not departed from by the early Californians; if anything the propensity was exhibited by them in a more marked fashion than usual. There were several reasons for this. The first was that inspired by the uneasy feeling of the interloper determined to maintain his position against all comers; and strongly cooperating with this was the jealousy inspired by the discovery of gold which gave birth to the apprehension that in the flood of immigration the owners of the soil through conquest would completely be submerged, and that the treasures of the new El Dorado would be absorbed by the outlander. But the most potent factor in the creation of adverse sentiment against foreigners was the transplanted "Know Nothingism" which flourished luxuriantly in California soil.
San Francisco was not at first disposed to boast of its cosmopolitanism. The Americans were inclined rather to regard with distrust and suspicion all who could not speak English. They did not seek to ingratiate themselves with the native Californians, and were very apt to apply contemptuous names to them, and to think of them as inferior beings, making few distinctions between the classes and regarding none of them as entitled to much consideration. There was a dis- position to be aggressive, or at least to be tolerant of the aggressions of the vicious, and what is more discreditable than anything else to hold foreigners, as a class, responsible for outrages in which disreputable Americans figured as freely, and much more numerously than those of other countries. The Sydney "coves" would not have been emboldened to act as they did in the affair of the Hounds in 1849 if they had not been well supported by a strong contingent of rowdies and black legs from the states east of the mountains.
All races were mingled in the influx. There were Chinese and Malays, Abys- sinians and negroes, Kanakas and New Zealanders, Feejee Islanders, and even Jap- anese, described as "short, thick, clumsy, ever bowing jacketed fellows," Hindoos, Russians and a few Turks. The Latin American peoples were well represented, the number of Chileans, Peruvians and Mexicans being especially noticeable. Ger- many and Great Britain had large contingents, by far the largest proportion from the latter country being Irish. The French were not absent from the throng and there were a few who claimed the distinction of being real Spaniards. And in greater number than any other nation could boast were the Americans who, how- ever, were as much strangers in a strange land as those whom at first they were disposed to regard as interlopers. Happily the intolerant spirit did not last long, and, except in rare instances, it was unproductive of mischief. In an incredibly Vol. I-15
Responsibility for Evil Practices
Putting the Biame on Foreigners
The Goid Seekers
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brief period there was an astonishing assimilation of all the respectable elements, only occasionally disturbed by the political manifestations of the "Know Nothings," which, however, usually expended their force at the polls. The friction produced by native Americanism after 1849 was never very great, even though the party proved victorious in elections and succeeded in putting its candidates into the gubernatorial chair and on the supreme bench.
It soon came to pass that foreigners were as much esteemed by Americans generally as though they were citizens, which indeed they took pains to become as speedily as possible when eligible for the honor. Among the names of the prominent business men of the Fifties will be found a large proportion whose origin may be easily detected, and the roll of the Vigilance Committee has its share of members who were born under other flags than the stars and stripes. Even the Chinese at that period shared in the general indulgence, and were familiarly known as "China boys." They were invited to take part in public functions and treated on terms of perfect equality in San Francisco at a time when they were being discriminated against in other parts of the world.
Growing Cosmopolitan- ism of City
With the perception of the fact that foreigners were an advantage rather than a hindrance to the prosperity of the community San Franciscans became proud of the cosmopolitan character of their City, and long before the Know Nothing fever had spent its strength they were wont to dwell upon the varied costumes and peculiar habits of the people who lived in their midst and made the life of San Francisco interesting. There are many interesting descriptions of street scenes in the early Fifties in which the picturesque features receive ample recognition. The native Californian on his prancing steed or slouching around with serape over his shoulders was much in evidence. There were a few Indians who roamed the streets half naked, and Chinese trudged along with baskets suspended from bamboo poles which rested on their shoulders. Red shirted men were numerous, but they could hardly be regarded as distinctive, for that garment was much affected at the time by firemen and others in Eastern cities. An occasional woman was sometimes seen parading her rich attire, for the purpose of advertising her calling.
Apologies for Streets
The condition of the streets used by this motley gathering from all parts of the world received as much attention from the critics as the people. It was indescrib- ably bad. The thoroughfares could hardly have tempted pedestrians to extraordi- nary effort. At first there were mere pathways of boards, and later there were walks which were illy divided from the planked roadways. They were unclean by day and unlighted by night, rendering them dangerous, as in many places they crossed swamps in which one might easily pay a serious penalty for carelessness. There was a plague of rats of all sorts, many of them doubtless introduced into the new country by the ships which brought the immigrants. There are old prints depicting the consternation they created in the female breast, which amusingly illustrate the extent of the evil and at the same time call attention to the almost total neglect of sanitary precautions.
The buildings which housed the people were not much better than the streets. Small rough board shanties were numerous, and tents were freely used for shelter until successive disastrous fires to which the City was a victim compelled the aban- donment of such flimsy structures. In the first year after the gold rush home life was almost unknown. At the close of 1849 nearly everybody lived in boarding houses, or at restaurants, which were numerous, but with rare exceptions were
Every Body Boarded
Foreigners Gain Respect
JENNY LIND THEATER, LATER CONVERTED INTO A CITY HALL, ON EAST SIDE OF KEARNY STREET, OPPOSITE PORTSMOUTH SQUARE The saloon on the left was the famous El Dorado
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MASONIC TEMPLE, MONTGOMERY AND POST STREETS, ERECTED IN 1860 AND DESTROYED BY FIRE OF 1906
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wretchedly deficient in anything contributing to human comfort, although those who conducted them exacted enormous prices for the miserable accommodations and fare provided by them.
It would have been amazing if under such circumstances a population composed almost wholly of men could have escaped the allurements of the saloon and the gambling table. The lack of opportunity for unobjectionable recreation, and the disposition to squander easily gained wealth combined, greatly stimulated the inher- ent tendency of men to indulge in games of chance, and there were plenty ready to provide the means to gratify the propensity. As a result, when gambling is un- restrained, it became a passion for the many, and a mere matter of business for the cold and calculating professionals who lived by preying upon the unwary. It cannot be said that the vice was introduced into the country by those who made their way to California when gold was discovered, for the natives were inveterate gamblers; but the newcomers brought with them many strange methods of parting the fool from his money, which were formerly unknown, and which became fully as popular as the Spanish game known as monte which had up to 1849 been the chief diversion of the people.
The games mostly played in the big saloons were monte, faro, roulette, rouge et noir and vingt-un. Poker, which later vied in attractiveness with the games mentioned is not often referred to among the fascinations held out by the dens clustered about Portsmouth square, although it must have been played, as it was well known in the South, and on the Mississippi years before 1849, and long before Bret Harte wrote his stirring verses on the celebrated encounter between Ah Sin and the haughty Caucasian. The stakes played for were often high. The annal- ist tells of a single wager in which $16,000 was risked, and his testimony is amply corroborated by others who assert that it was no uncommon thing for men to come in from the mines and get rid in a single night of all the gold gathered by them during months of toil.
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