USA > California > San Francisco County > San Francisco > San Francisco, a history of the Pacific coast metropolis, Volume II > Part 9
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That this disturbance was merely a sporadic ebullition, and not the result of a plan, or even of deliberate instigation, was shown by the action of the committee of safety which was disbanded on July 30th. Had there been any apprehension of further disturbance the citizen's committee would not have dissolved so speedily. The attempt to make it appear that the affair was a sand lot manifestation proved successful later when the facts concerning the disturbance and its origin were forgotten. Truth demands the statement that the trouble arose out of the presence in the City of an unusually large number of unemployed men who assembled in crowds to discuss the news of the railroad strike in the East, and its accompany- ing acts of violence, and the manifestations were only a faint reflection of the dis- order witnessed in several Eastern cities about the same time, which in some cases called for the intervention of the military.
The first sand lot meeting at which Kearney was present took place early in the following September. There had been gatherings of a miscellaneous character, near the place where the stand stood which was subsequently used by the agitators, during several months preceding the advent of Kearney, but they were of such a character that the newspapers took no pains to report them. They were usually addressed by speakers who had panaceas for alleviating human woes, and sometimes their audiences numbered several hundreds. On the night of September 7th, Denis Kearney had made a speech in Dashaway Hall on Post street in the course of which he announced that he would speak on the sand lot in front of the city hall on the ensuing Sunday.
This announcement was printed in the papers, and the crowd, as a result, was large; and as Kearney indulged in intemperate language the meeting was reported. There was nothing extraordinary in this latter circumstance, but there would have been ground for adverse comment had it been ignored as meetings of a similar character held in halls before and after that date received attention. There was a meeting of the unemployed in Union hall, a large structure on Mission street, on the night of September 21st, which was addressed by Philip A. Roach, a promi- nent democrat, and one of the proprietors of the "Examiner," in which he denounced the actions of the "pick handle brigade" in unmeasured terms. At the same meet- ing Kearney spoke, and although he had acted with the committee of safety on the night of July 25th, he was unsparing in his criticism of the motives of those who had organized the brigade and proclaimed that their purpose was to make serfs of the workingmen.
After the first meeting in September on the sand lot the socialists, temperance orators, phrenologists, fakers and visionaries of all kinds, who had formerly occu-
Citizens' Committee Promptly Dissolved
First Sand Lot Meetings
Big Crowds on the Sand Lot
Workingmen's Party
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pied the neighborhood on Sunday afternoons were completely dislodged and the embryo workingmen's party of California took possession. The proposition to form a workingmen's party which had been urged in the early Seventies had been renewed after the disturbance in July, but although suggestions to that effect were made in August, no practical steps were taken to accomplish that purpose in ad- vance of the election of 1877. The legislators chosen in that year were democrats or republicans, with the exception of a solitary independent sent to the assembly from a San Francisco district. It has been stated that the legislature of 1877-78 was dominated by the sand lot, but to maintain that assumption it is necessary to assume that the democratic majority was insincere in making its pledges, for every demand of the sand lot had been anticipated by the platform of that party, and it was to the promises thus made that it owed its success at the polls.
Denis Kearney as a Leader
It is difficult to judge the motives of men, and it is not essential that the his- torian should essay the task. Very often those who figure prominently as leaders are merely the creatures of circumstances, and the actions attributed to deep de- sign on their part, are forced upon them by the march of events. Denis Kearney was a leader of that sort. He was absolutely destitute of originality, but he was quick to seize upon a suggestion. It has already been stated that he was a frequent vis- itor to newspaper offices before he began to figure prominently as a champion of the workingmen. In the course of these visits he became acquainted with a re- porter of the "Chronicle" named Chester Hull, a versatile writer endowed with a strong sense of humor, which often took the form of practical joking. Kearney early disclosed his ambitions to Hull, and the latter undoubtedly advised, and certainly gave Kearney the idea that in order to win success he must avoid scat- tering. . Hull's colleagues in the city room of the "Chronicle" declared that there was only one subject on which he seemed to feel deeply, and that was the danger to the people of the Pacific coast, and the white race generally, from the encroachments of cheap Oriental labor, and that he furnished Kearney with the slogan "The Chinese Must Go" and impressed upon him that continued iteration of the phrase would attract attention and win recognition.
Whether the phrase was inspired by Hull, or was of his own devising, Kearney constantly employed it, and invariably ended his harangues with the emphatic declaration. It was undoubtedly the strongest weapon in his oratorical armory, but there were others which he used with equal facility. The educational attain- ments of Kearney have been frequently dwelt upon by writers who have reached the conclusion that he was not a scholar, and that he had only a smattering of in- formation. The facts are not entirely out of harmony with this assumption. Kear- ney was born in Ireland, and was a young man when he emigrated to this country. The only learning he had when he arrived in San Francisco in 1868 was of a very rudimentary character, but he was an assiduous reader and was much addicted to history, from which he drew some remarkable inferences. He was also interested in the speculations of Darwin, and at one time was disposed to sympathize with the individualistic views of Spencer. If he could express his views in writing he refrained from doing so when visiting the newspaper offices, contenting himself with verbally conveying the information he brought.
Kearney on the Stump
He was a voluble speaker, however, and was never at a loss for words in a discussion, or when on the stump, but was not very choice in their use. He was
Kearney's Literary Attainments
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VIEW OF CITY IN 1876, LOOKING SOUTHEAST FROM MARKET STREET CUT
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accustomed to using such epithets as "blood sucker," "bloated monopolists," "bloody cormorants," "thieving land grabbers," etc., but there is a reasonable presumption that they were not genuine explosives, but were worked up for sand lot consump- tion, for when he employed them privately they were apt to have an intonation which suggested the winks of the Roman angurs. He was quick at repartee and thoroughly understood his audiences. He indulged in tricks of "oratory" which few men would have ventured upon in addressing a body of men who took things seriously. Irony was one of his favorite weapons, and in using it he approached perilously near incitement to riot. One of his favorite devices was to veil a threat in doggerel verse. On one occasion he concluded a vigorous description of the voracity of the bloated monopolists and bondholders with:
There was a bloody swallow Who lived up a bloody spout; And when the bloody rain came, It washed the bloody fellow out.
He had a stock of quotations which he drew upon regularly without much regard to literal accuracy, but they were usually appropriately employed. He was an assiduous reader of the newspapers and his Sunday harangues on the sand lot often were a resume of the contents of their columns during the week. He derived most of his information from the "Chronicle" whose exposure of the Navy Pay Office frauds and the abuses of the timber and desert land acts were just the sort of pabulum he required to satisfy the appetites of his followers, who had an in- grained belief that the rascalities of officeholders were at the bottom of all their troubles. Bryce in his "American Commonwealth" asserted that "the activity of the "Chronicle" counted for much, for it was ably written, went everywhere and continued to give a point and force to Kearney's harangues which made them more effective in print then even his voice had made them to the listening crowds." This was a gratuitous assumption, and one which Bryce would not have made if he had investigated the subject he wrote about. He frankly admits that when it was suggested that the only way in which he could learn the details of the sand lot troubles would be to go through the files of the newspapers between 1877 and 1880, that he refused to do so as such a search would involve too much trouble.
Had he taken this trouble he would have discovered that there was no founda- tion for his implication that the "Chronicle" reports of Kearney's speeches were much of a factor in keeping up interest. On the contrary he would at once have perceived that Kearney was making effective use for his own purposes of the ex- posures made by that journal, and that he was merely a vulgar echo of its charges of venality and corruption which were made with precision and directness by the newspaper, and implicated some of the men from whom Bryce gained the material for his chapter on the sand lot troubles, which, however, in spite of its inaccuracies, reveals the true causes of the upheaval. There was nothing, however, said by the "Chronicle" that begins to approach the blackness of the picture painted by Bryce, who said: "Both in the country and in the City there was disgust with politics and politicians. The legislature was composed almost wholly of office seekers from the City or petty country lawyers, needy and narrow minded men. Those who had virtue enough not to be 'got at' by the great corporations had not intel-
An Assiduous Reader of Newspapers
The Newspaper and Historical Accounts of Events
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ligence enough to resist their devices. It was a common saying in the state that each successive legislature was worse than its predecessor. The meeting of the representatives of the people was seen with anxiety, their departure with relicf. . . . The judges were not corrupt, but most of them, as was natural, con- sidering the scanty salaries assigned to them, were inferior men, not fit to cope with counsel who practiced before them. Partly owing to the weakness of juries, partly owing to the intricacies of the law and the defects of the recently adopted code, criminal justice was halting and uncertain and malefactors often went un- punished. It became a proverb that you might safely commit a murder if you took the advice of the best lawyers."
Historian Bryce's Biunder
Mr. Bryce's blunder did not consist in an underestimation of the gravity of the situation; where he erred was in permitting the men who were responsible for the condition he described to make him believe that they were good citizens, and that the "sand lotters" who were denouncing the real malefactors, and the news- papers who were pointing out the offenders, were to blame. He was apparently imbued with the idea that the men who imparted to him the distorted views which he reproduced as his own, were wholly disinterested, and he lacked the acumen to perceive that they were under the dominating influence of the corporations in- dicted by him as corruptors of public morals. In short, Mr. Bryce expressed the opinion pretty generally entertained at the time he wrote that innovations, the result of upheavals from the bottom, were dangerous to the existing society. If he had to rewrite the chapter which is here criticized, and would do so in the light of his professed admiration for Roosevelt, he would in honesty be compelled to admit that in all essential particulars the avowed programme of Denis Kearney, and the reforms advocated by the ex-president are alike.
Bryce's Comments Cause Irritation
The comments here made are not a digression; they are necessary in order to bring out a fact which Bryce himself states, that the people of California were irritated by his treatment of the sand lot episode. In a footnote to a later edition of his "American Commonwealth" he says: "When I visited San Francisco in 1881 and again in 1883 people were unwilling to talk about the Kearney agitation feeling, it seemed to me, rather ashamed of it, and annoyed that so much should have been made of it (more they declared than it deserved) in the Eastern states." It will be necessary further on to explain the cause of this irritation which Mr. Bryce does not make clear. It was not due, as his readers may readily assume, to the natural desire of a community to stand well in the eyes of the world, but to the inability of the people who reproached him to perceive that the turpitude he had depicted, and their own inattention to civic matters, were responsible for the sand lot uprising.
To recur to the so called sand lot troubles, and in order to dissociate them en- tirely from the ebullition of midsummer with which they had no connection what- ever, it should be mentioned that it was not until October 5, 1877, or more than two months after the demonstration, against the Chinese laundries that the work- ing men's party of California was organized with Denis Kearney as president, John G. Day as vice president, and H. L. Knight as secretary. This movement, however, was not a forerunner of the cohesiveness which was later displayed, for there were rival factions and not infrequently two sets of orators were declaiming at the same time on the sand lots against monopoly and the venality of officials.
Organization of the Workingmen's Party
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But the following of Kearney was by far the largest and in a comparatively brief period he succeeded in silencing the rivalry of his opponents. About the middle of the month the Kearney ring issued a manifesto which was published in the morn- ing papers in which the phrase "The Chinese Must Go" occurred, and coupled with it was the assertion that the workingmen would bring about that result by force if necessary. Apart from this declaration the statements in the manifesto read very like a vulgarized edition of Bryce's arraignment. "Congress," said the manifesto, "has often been manipulated by thieves, speculators and land grabbers, bloated bondholders, railroad magnates and shoddy aristocrats-a golden lobby dictating its proceedings. Our own legislature is little better. The rich rule them by bribes. The rich rule the country by fraud and cunning; and we say that fraud and cunning shall not rule us."
This manifesto was written by Knight, but the major part of it was dictated by Kearney, whose part in it can be recognized by the allusions to Patrick Henry, whose peroration in his speech in the Virginia House of Burgesses on the Stamp Act, "As for me, give me liberty or give me death" was constantly in the agitator's mouth, as were also the expressions "bloated bondholders" and "shoddy aristo- crats," which he turned off as glibly as Roosevelt did his pet expression "male- factors of great wealth." Hull declared that Kearney once said to him that he did not quote Patrick Henry so much on account of the sentiments expressed by the revolutionary orator, as because the name Patrick made an impression on his hearers, or as he was pleased to call them "them chaws."
The fulminations of Kearney, and his attempts to call into existence a work- ingmen's party, might have met the same fate as the effort made in the beginning of the decade, under the auspices of the Knights of St. Crispin, if it had not been for the death of one of the state senators from Alameda county on January 6, 1878. This necessitated the calling of a special election at which a candidate put forward by the workingmen's party, named John Bones, was seated by a large majority. At another by-election held in Santa Clara county to fill a vacancy in the senate and one in the assembly the workingmen also proved successful and in March they elected their candidate for mayor, and several of the city officials of Sacramento. There is reason for believing that had the untimely deaths not occurred, the move- ment might have expended itself in bloviation, but the leaders were intoxicated by the successes achieved at the polls and they went ahead with their plans regardless of the fact that the legislature of 1877-78 was effecting many reforms, and entirely ignoring the possibilities which the adoption of a new organic law held out in the way of abating the evils and corruption which they made the groundwork of their complaints. But it should be added as the session of the legislature wore on it gave abundant cause for suspicion that it would fail to redeem its promises. There were indications that the act which provided for the election of delegates to a convention to revise the constitution would be side tracked, and as a matter of fact its passage and approval were delayed until within a few days of adjournment. There had been a flagrant exhibition of attempted railroad domination when the bill creating a commission was up for action in the assembly. On several days ex-Governor Stanford sat in the rear of the assembly chamber and directed the course of corporation members who were hard pushed by the anti monopolists. It was a remarkable display of indifference to public opinion, but no more startling
Manifesto of the W. P. C.
The Workingmen's Party's First Triumph
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than C. P. Huntington was making daily in the capitol at Washington where with equal boldness he marshalled the supporters of the corporation in the senate and house of representatives.
Demands of Laborites Resemble Those of Modern Progressives
There was no lack of material for assaults when the workingmen's convention met in San Francisco on January 21, 1878. There was no election pending but a platform was adopted stating the aims of the new party and making promises. A resume of its declarations and demands discloses a similarity to that adopted in 1871, and in most features resembling that of the advanced "progressives" of 1911. It started out with an expression of opposition to coolie labor and the intro- duction of coolies into the country. This is about the only particular in which it differs from the pronunciamentos of the twentieth century reformers as will be seen at a glance by reading an epitome of the remaining planks. These demanded that government land be held for actual settlement and cultivation; that individuals holding more than one square mile were to be restricted to that quantity, and that it should be devoted to cultivation and pasturage; that all lands of equal value and productive nature be subject to equal taxation; that import duties on raw materials not produced in the United States be abolished; that a system of finance be adopted consistent with the agricultural, manufacturing and mercantile indus- tries and requirements of the country uncontrolled by rings, brokers and bankers; that the pardoning power be taken away from presidents and governors and be vested in commissioners; that malfeasance in office be punished with imprison- ment for life without recourse, and no pardon for delinquents; the contract system in the state prisons and reformatories to be abolished and goods manufactured there to be sold at not less than current market rates for the product of free labor; all labor on public works to be done by day labor; eight hours to be a sufficient day's work and to be made so by law; all public officers to receive fixed salaries and no fees; president and vice president and United States senators to be elected by direct vote of the people; the common school system to be cherished and sup- ported; a system of compulsory education to be provided; a special fund maintained to secure attendance of such poor children as would otherwise be unable to attend school; education to be entirely secular in public schools and lectures at stated intervals to uphold the dignity of labor and mechanical vocations as paramount to all other walks of life.
A Much Criticized Omisslon
A careful reading of this declaration will disclose that it is infinitely less radical than the demands put forward by the advocates of governmental conservation of forest lands and water rights and the antagonists of what are called trusts. With the single exception of the declaration against coolie labor it will be noted that the platform deals with national and general issues and apparently avoids those that are local. Although antagonism against the railroad was running high at the time, denunciation of the corporation and demands for its regulation were absent from the document. This was all the more surprising as Kearney's sand lot diatribes were filled with vitriolic allusions to the iniquities of the Central Pacific and the greed of its managers. The omission did not escape criticism. It was commented on at the time, and later it was openly charged that Kearney and his associates had deliberately excluded all reference to the railroads for a consideration.
Crocker's Spite Fence
The reputation of the railroad for "fixing" things was so general that an omis- sion of the kind referred to would have attracted attention even if it had not been
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inconsistent with the professions and conduct of some of the agitators. Less than three months previous to the drafting of the platform Kearney had been arrested for making a threatening demonstration against one of the railroad magnates. On the night of October 29, 1877, he had led a mob of two or three thousand of his followers to Nob hill and there held a mass meeting, the principal purpose of which was to menace Charles Crocker, who had gained an unenviable notoriety by the erection of a spite fence around the property of a man named Yung. Crocker was the owner of the block of land on California street bounded by Mason and Jones and Sacramento, with the exception of a single lot 25 feet in width owned by Yung to whom he offered a sum far exceeding the value of the holding, which Yung re- fused to accept. Yung was greedy and determined to extort all he could, and Crocker declined to submit to the extortion. But he did not let it rest at that. He erected a high fence which towered above Yung's little house and shut out all liglit and air excepting from the street in front. Crocker's exhibition of arrogance was severely criticized, but no attempt to interfere with the maintenance of the nuisance was ever made by the authorities, and the spite fence became a sort of show place, visitors to Nob hill having their attention directed to it by guides whose explanations were not always complimentary to Crocker.
On the October night referred to Kearney made the high fence, and the "wrongs" of Yung the theme of his speech. Yung had begged for mercy, and was willing to sell at any price when he found himself shut in, but discovered that he was dealing with an obdurate man who had become rather proud of his ability to pun- ish any one who dared to oppose his wishes. Kearney made a fiery address in which he described the grabbing propensities of the railroad magnates and denounced them as thieves. A formal demand was made that they should discharge the Chi- nese in their employ and they were threatened with dire consequences if they failed to comply. Crocker was also given a month's notice to take down the spite fence, and was warned that if he did not do so the workingmen would tcar it down for him on the 29th of November. Subsequently Kearney was charged with mis- demeanor on two complaints, one based upon his Nob hill speech and the other upon the language used by him in an address made in Irish 'American hall. On the night of November 3d, while addressing an open air meeting near the corner of Kearney and Washington streets he was arrested and taken to the city prison. It was feared that an attempt to rescue would be made, and Day, Knight, C. C. O'Donnell and Charles Pickett, the other active leaders, were locked up on a charge of inciting to riot. The incarcerated men united in a round robin addressed to the mayor in which they declared that their speeches had been misrepresented by the press, and that they had no intention of disturbing the peace, and that they "were willing to submit to 'any measure to allay the excitement." The communication was disregarded, but subsequently when they were tried in the criminal court it was held that while the facts might indicate grave offenses they did not constitute criminal riot, and they were released.
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