The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, February 5, 1899, Page 2

A The Tall VOLUME LXXXV—N 67. SAN FRANCISCO, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1899—THIRTY-TWO PAGES. AGUINALDO’S TROOPS ATTACK AMERICANS DEFENDING MANILA At Last the Tagallo Leader Has Made Good His Oft Repeated Threat. General Night Engagement Is Begun All Around the City. Dewey Takes Part With the Fleet and Native Troops Fail to Gain One Foot. 3 MANILA, Feb. 5, 9 2. m—|been taken Ffor some a::(;u;?::f]cmf\ ma_(_le afgitler?lliweeks past in compli- el he American forces in| gpnce with the express| he defenses of the city last night, [ di ti f G | and at this hour the battle still | iheo LOnSeD eneral e ‘OUS. The attack began at 8:301 The assault was gen- o'clock Saturday evening, in re-:eral’ and the (_)utposts sponse to a signal fired from"?“ around the city were| Aguinaldo’s headquarters. |{immediately engaged. | The forces of Aguinaldo | Althoth the attack | seemed to be in the greatit num- | was ‘nOt expected the: e o themosth o Malabon and | American troops were |to the south, at Malate, and from | not caught napping, as|those quarters the most deter- the strictest precautions | mined attack was made. ‘, against surprise had succeed anywhere in breaking the American| lines, every assault be- ing successfully resist-| ed, and the conduct of| the Amercan troops earning the highest en- comiums from their offi- cers. No attempt was made during the night to force the insurgents from the strong positions they occupied in the trenches dug by the Spanish troops for the de- fense of the city, but which have SOOO0000000000000000000000000000000 (] [ © . o ¢ o [+] 9 o o [ [ WASHINGTON, Feb. 5.—The President was © alone in the White House at 11 © Manila dispatch describing the @ the city was handed to him. © and no member of the Cabinet or © present. The President read the © up until a very late hour awaiting further details. o . After waiting till 1 o’clock for word from Otis the President © retired. Only one secretary was on duty been in many places turned by the Filipinos into works of offense against the town they were originally intended to defend. There has beennoces- sation of firing since the attack was commenced, and at this hour, 9 o’clock Sunday morn- ing, fighting continues. No advantage has been dained by the natives, but at the same time no diminution is noticed in the vehemence of their assault. No one, so far as at present known, has been killed on the American side. In fact, the marks- manship of the Filipinos does not seem at all good, for after more than twelve hours’ fighting only| twenty Americans have been wounded. The loss on Aguinaldo’s side is Continued on Fourth Page. practically o’clock last night, when the attack of the insurgents upon other' Government official was dispatch with eagerness and sat 0000000000000 00000000000 PRICE FIVE CENT BURNS RAN HIS MINE TO MAKE IT PAY, BUT MEN'S WAGES GAVE MOST OF THE GOOD RED GOLD IT BORE SWINDLED MINERS WHO STILL CURSE THE MAN FROM MEXICO Beat Them All Out of Their Money. A Millionaire’s Subtérfuge to Save the Payment of His Board Bill. Possible Answer to the Anxions Query, “Where Are the Lost Books of the Ex-Secretary of State?” T is possible to show some intellect and perhaps courage in robbing the rich—in filching a mine or looting a State—but to steal from a poor man is petty larceny, and of that do the miners of the old Centennial convict Dan Burns. It was the pettiest of petty larceny that they charge against the aspirant for a seat in the Senate—the common- est trick of the professional beat. He ! took their work and defrauded them of their pay, and in his hurry to escape their demands he jumped his board bill like a penniless tramp and rode out of the country with a sack full of gold. The Centennial mine was near Yan- kee Jim, one of the old mining towns of Placer County, and in 1883 one of the liveliest. It was an old mine and two companies had tried to make something | out of it, but they ended in turning it | over to the Napoleon Mining Company in 1879. The company was capitalized for $10,000,000, and Dan Burns owned | - 24,700 of its 46,000 shares. of the mine, and under T. H. Reynolds it was run for three years. Then Burns was made superintendent about the beginning of 1883. Burns lasted just as long as he thought he could beat the men out of | not_paid. It took hold { their pay and then he closed the mine | down. ‘It was on one of his periodical | trips to the mine that he finished mat- ters in a manner truly his own. He used to stop with Old Man Lowell, who lived in Yankee Jim, a mile and a half | from the mine and on the road to Col- fax. He always stopped there instead of at the hotel, and Lowell's still un- | receipted bill for board for man and | horse explains why-he did so. He usu- ‘ally brought one and sometimes two friends with him, but on the last occa- | sion he came alone. He said he wanted | to make a clean-up of the mill while he was there, and Bill McCoy and Charlie Dewey, his foreman and under superintenident, assisted him In doing this. It took them a good part of the‘ day, and then Burns called for his | team and piled the proceeds of the | clean-up into the buggy. ‘With the gold under the seat and his | whip in_his hand, Burns turned to | Dewey, his assistant. *‘Close down the mine to-night, Charlie,” he called to him, and started his team. It was the first intimation the miners had that their work was to cease, and but one | had presence of mind enough to inquire | about their pay. “T'll send it up from | the city when I get there,” was Burns’ quieting promise, and that was the last Yankee Jim saw or heard of him. The Centennial mine was not a big paying property, and much of the State’s good red gold had gone into it, for Burns was Secretary of State when he jumped his board bill at Lowell’s and left a crown of miners in Yankee Jim sighing for the dollars he owed them. There were sixteen or eighteen of them, and some of them are still in Yankee Jim in various stages of pov- erty and still cursing the man from Mexico and his broken promises. Their bills amount to but a drop in the bucket of a $10,000,000 corporation, but | they are still unpaid, and there is no likelihood of their being paid. As manager of the mine the men | looked to Burns for their money and | him they held responsible when it was He owed Lowell $74 25, of | | which $20 was for board and horse feed; | he owed Adam Duncan, who still refers to him feelingly as a “thief,” $66. Dun- can worked two months for the mine and during the last twenty-two days of this Burns managed the property. Duncan was paid for all his work but the last twenty-two days, and to Mr. Burns alone is the doubtful honor of beating him out of his pay. ‘Duncan is keeping the only hotel in Yankee Jim now. The place is not the roaring, reckless, riotous town it was years ago, and $66 would come handy to the old : : 3 The insurgents did not|§ccccccecocooc000c0000000000000000 Manila, Now Being Defended by American Troops Against the Forces Under Aguinaldo. Dewey’s Fleet Lying With the Transports. The View Shows the Walled City, the Pasig River and man now—but Burns needs it for his Senatorial fight, and Duncan is poor anyhow. Old Jim McIntosh was another. Mec- Intosh was a wood-chopper then, and was rightly called Old Jim, even back in '83. He was paid for his wood until Burns took hold. He received one small payment from the mine-owner for one lot of wood, and then he made the mistake of delivering more. He is still looking for the money. His last lot, he says, was worth $100, and he put in a bill for that, but he had his trouble and the price of a new ax for his pains. He lives alone now in a lit- tle shanty in what was once a prom- inent street in Yankee Jim. He still lives by the swing of his ax, but min- ers in Yankee Jim have been cutting their own wood lately and the old man's living is not a trifling question. In his present condition he would glad- ly forego the pleasure of representation in the Senate by Burns if he could only | get that money. It would be almost a lfortune to him now—but Burns needs t. A. F. McCollam is another. He has a | bill for $101 50 against the mine. He has been down-for three years with rheumatism and he has a wife and five children to support. He has more use for a hundred dollars than Burns, and he can put it to a better use—but he does not vote for Senator and the claim still stands unpaid. Bill Smalley was beaten out of $108; E. H. Lowell out of $48; John McCoy, $66; John Mills, $49; Michael Clark, William Stone, $60; Charles McCoy, $55; ‘William McCoy, $72; John Hubbell, §24; E. Lowell, $42; J. Gilligan, $42; Ben Mills, $56; S. R. Braverly, $72; William Roberts, $60; M. J. Pendergrass, $78; A. M. McCollam, $69, and there were sev- eral more. They were all similar sums, large enough for miners to look forward to and count on and live on, but lumped together not equal to what a decent millionaire would spend in a year's charity; and the corporation, with Burns owner cf more than half the stock, had a capital of ten millions. Some of the miners assigned their clalms to Dewey and he broughf suit for their mon but others, appre- ciating the Burns characteristics, spent their time searching for a suitable word to describe him. Some wrote to him. but he was busy reducing the surplus in the vaults of the office of Secretary of State, and when their patience gave out, and they wrote again, he had gone out of office, the clink of his gold sug- gesting the clanking of chaing, but he was not so wealthy as he had been. Dewey’s suit was brought in Depart- ment 4 of the Superior Court of San Francisco. In it he included all the di- rectors of the corporation and demand- ed from them a total of $1818 75. This included besides the claims of the min- ers the claims of J. H. White, a team- ster, and L. Remler, who furnished supplies, not knowing the financial pos- sibilities of Mr. Burns. The complaint had hardly been filed | before all the defendants except Burns and Thomas R. Hayes paid with a promptness which indicated a first knowledge of the debt, and the pay- ment of each is now on record in the County Clerk’s office in this city. That was back in 1883, but thé miners have seen none of the money yvet. This al- lowed all but Burns and Hayes to drop out of the suit, and it reduced Burns’ actual legal indebtedness to $864 50 and | Hayes' to $37 30. The suit against them | was tried and on December 21, 1883, judgment was given for the plaintiff. This judgment still stands, but singu- larly enough the miners can get no word of it, nor do they know that it has been rendered. Dewey, the old superintendent, has become friendly with Burns again and he has said nothing of suit or money. During the years that followed there were other mining schemes occupying | office of Secretary the mind of Mr. Burns, schemes equally successful and in a similar way to his wages mine at Yankee Jim, but he made enough out of the Candelaria to make up for his lost income from the of State, and so McCollam wrote to him again on Jan- uary 7, 1891, for himself and some of his friends in rhisfortune. He demanded the payment of the claims, and warned Burns that they still looked to him, as the last superintendent, for the full amount. McCollam reminded Burns of the I. clean up and how he drove away with the last grain of gold from the mine, and paid his men with a hol- low promise. He received an answer in which Burns, with all the, fabled gra- ciousness of Jack Cade or Robin Hood, declared the claims were right and just and that he would pay his share—"a one-tenth.” This is his letter: SAN FRA 0, Jan. 13, 1891 A. F. McCollam Forest Hill, Cal.— Dear Sir: ter of 7th inst in re- gard to_the leon Mining Company is t received and c s duly noted. 1 was a one-tenth owner in d company and am perfectly willing to pay my proportion of those old debts, notwithstanding that they are outlawed: I do this not because of your threat of public#tion, but for the reason that I be- lieve it just and right. Yours respectful- 1y, D. M. BURNS. G. It was a deeper sarcasm than even the miners knew. He owned nearly 25,000 of the 46,000 shares of the ten- million-dollar corporation, yet to beat the miners out of their little dollars he said he owned ‘“one-tenth.” He £aid he was willing to pay, yet he knew there stood an unsatisfied judgment against him which he had evaded and crossed like a flshwife dodging her ac- count at the corner grocery; and to add to it all he said the claims were right and just. No wonder old Adam Durcan jumps into the road at the mention of Dan Burns' name . and shouts: “He's a thief! A thief, I say! Some may be afraid of him, but I'm not. He's a thief, and if he dared come back to Yankee Jim I'd tell him so right here.” The records show that Burns was properly served with the complaint in the *proceedings against him, and he had ample knowledge of the trial. He did not think the claims right enough or just enough to stop the suit and pay, nor did he show any more willingness after the judgment was rendered than before. He thought to fool the miners | and save a little more money to add to the seven figures of his ill-gotten bank balance, or perhaps it was just his na- ture. He may be able to b the hotel men of Washington, as he did Lowell, and cinch Government employes, as he did his miners—if he should get to the Senate—and he may want the miners’ money to use in his fight for fame. The Centennial mine was not a pay- ing speculation for Burns either in rep- utation or a financial aspect. He was Secretary of State during all the time he was an owner of the mine, and many a dollar that started honestly for the State Treasury found its way down the shaft of the Centennial; then wish- ing to save some of his loot, he took charge of the mine himself and squeezed the miners for the few hard- earned dollars due them. He never brought any money up to the mine, but he brought other things. Reynolds, his chief deputy in the Sec- retary of State's office, was at one time his assistant superintendent at the mine, and when Reynolds made his periodical visits to Yankee Jim he often brought with him big account books— leather bound, official-looking and sug- gestive—and over these Burns or Rev- nolds would pore until far into the night. They were not the books of the mine—those were at Yankee Jjim al- ready, and it was a source of specula- tion among the miners as to what ac- counts had to be hauled over the Placer hills to be inspected in the privacy of a mining camp. It was after all this that John P. Dunn, State Controller, in writing of Burns' defalcation while Secretary. of | State, and setting forth the difficulty of getting evidence of fraud. wrote: “Not one of the books in which were entered the daily transactions of the of- fice can be found.” ‘And farthef on in his report he wrote, referring to the books which Reynolds kept: “plt 1s a remarkable fact that the daily journal and private cash book mentioned above should now be miss- ing.” gorhaps if he had visited Yankee Jim he might have heard something about them. Burns’ memory is a green one in Yankee Jim. The miners keep him in mind and watch for the returns from the joint ballot and exult in .thP pros- pect of his defeat. They don’t want a swindler of miners to represent the mining interests in the halls of Con- gress. They don’t want a petty lar- cenist to refer to honest men and say THE FENDER BILL FAILED TO PASS CALL, HEADQUARTERS, SACRA- MENTO, Feb. 4—Senator Braunbart's “fender bill” came up before the Senate this morning on its third reading and final passage, but failed to get a constitutional majority. Senator Braunhart changed his vote from ave to no and gave notica that on Monday he would move for a re- consideration of the vote. The measure provides that all street cars shall be equipped with life-saving fenders and brakes that will stop a car abruptly in cases of emergency. It has been hotly contested from the time it was first introduced, though the contest- ing element has not been in the majority. The consideration of the bill this morning did not bring forth much in the way of argument, but Braunhart was ready and made a hard fight to change the result. After the first vote he called for a call of the absentees, of which there were eight, and finally demanded a call of the house and the doors were closed. Only two votes were gained by it, however, and the hill failing to get the necessary twenty-one was declared lost. Its author is confident, however, that when all of the eight absentees are again in their seats and his bill comes up on re- consideration. it will be passed. In Favor of Hoey. CALL HEADQUARTERS, SACRA- MENTO, Peb. 4—The Committee on Con- tested Elections decided to-day that As- semblyman Lawrence Hoey of San Fran- cisco’ should retain his seat in the As- sembly. | Mr. Hoey was -elected to represent the Twenty-eighth District by a majority of 25 over his Republican opponent, Patrick Graham, and ever since Mr. Graham has been making a fight to unseat him. The committee required little more than an hour to decide that the charge made in Graham’'s complaint was not based on sufficient fact to warrant a recount of tha ballots and it concluded to report mously in favor of Mr. Hoey.