The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, January 10, 1904, Page 14

THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL. (Copyright, 1802, by Thomas Fitch.) HE free silver colnage move- ment which swept like a flood over the West and South in 189, which in many instances oblit- erated party lines, which made Demo- crats of Republicens and Republicans of Democrats, was logical in its day because it was based upon conditions which seemed to demand its success as method of extrication from existing evils. Natural causes and not agitation remitted the great ques- tion of 1896 to the limbo of lost politi- cal issues. South Africa, West Australia, Crip- ple Creek and Alaska solved the prob- lem that for a time vexed the politi- claps. The gold finders of the world have usually been members of the An- glo-Saxon race, and they have seldom falled in an emergency. They went to the mountains and veldts of South Africa and the torrid guiches of West Australia and cried “Give forth!” To the stubborn ores of Colorado they said: “We have come to cyanide you. Give forth!” On the Yukon and Nome they swung the pick and hammer by the light of the aurors borealls and the midnight sun and shouted “Give forth!” And the rocks obeyed, even as Horeb ylelded when Moses emote it, and the new streams of gold supplied all demands for com- merce for more metallic money, and free coinage of silver was no longer necessary, or even desirable, except to silver mine owners, and there were not many of these. the only at Yet, s Macaulay says in substance, “Parties often survive long after the issues which called them into existence heve been settled,” so the cry for free colnage did not cease. In the canvass of 1900 it was still an issue in the Far West, and those Republicans who had left their party to support Bryan in 1896 on account of it did not escape criticism if they returned to their al- legiance. There was & great political meeting in 2 far western community and the speaker of the evening was a noted free coinage advocate who had returned to the Republican fold. He explained the reason for his action, and claimed that for the United States alone to attempt free coinage would be to Mexicanize our currency. Thereupon & loud voiced op- ponent in the audience interrupted him with the question, “Which is the best for us to become, a Mexican colony or to remain as now slaves of England?” The speaker paused. “I cannot answer that question,” said he. “Ah ha! 1 thought youscouldn't!" cried the inter- rupter. “And Il explain,” continued the speaker, “why I cannot answer it, by telling a little story. Once upon & time a company of Federal troops were in pursuit of & band of hostile Apaches. Thelr chase led them along a mountain trail over which no wheeled wvehicle could pass. So they strapped a small brass Yield piece upon the back of a burro and went ahead. They discov- JACK SrTH WAS A LiTiIGIoUS BoTHER ered a party of Indians at the bottom of a deep ravine. Their gun was loaded and ready. They backed the burro to the edge of the precipice, turned the gun on the Indians and the order was given to fire. Before the order could be obeyed the burro suddenly wheeled, but the soldier to whom the order was given in his confusion ptilled the lanyvard of the gun. Its contents were discharged into the ground, and the recoil kicked the burro and gun over the precipice and both fell into the middie of the In- dlan camp. A white flag soon appeared and shortly afterward the Indians ap- peared. “Ugh!™ said their chief to the lieutenant commanding the soldiers, ‘Injun no fight you. We fight miner, fight soldier, fight with gun, fight with pistol, fight with bow and arrow. But you shoot jackass at Injun—then Tnjun quit.’ " “If free coinage is denied us,” sald an Oregon farmer tc an advocate of the single gold standard, “silver will go- down and the price of grain will follow that of sliver, and what shall we do with our wheat?” “Make pork of it,” replied the speaker, airily. “But,” an- swered the farmer, “the gold bugs don’j eat pork.” One of the ost ardent free. silver advocates in the country was George Spencer, at one time United States Sen- ator from Alabama. “The curious fea- ture of my first election to the Senate,” said he, “was that until a few week before the election I had never lived i the State of Alabama. It happened in this way: I raised a company in Iowa, where I lived before the war, and in the second year of the war was on the staff of the general commanding at Chatta- nooga. It wes proposed to raise a regi- ment from the Union men living in the mountains in Northern Alabama. This @uty was Intrusted to me and I was appointed colonel. I selected all of the staff and most of the company officers, and the regiment did good service, al- though as it happened it was never called upon for service in Alabama. ‘When the war was over we/were mus- tered out, and I went to California and opened an office in San Francisco as a mining stock broker. I corresponded oc- casionally with my old comrades. One day after reconstruction had been ef- fected and Alabama admitted I pe- ceived by pony express—for the rail- road was not then completed—a letter signed by several of the former officers of my regiment. They stated in sub- stance that they had been eleceted members of the State Legislature, which would convene in a few months; that two United States Senators were ® to be elected; that there were a dozen candidates; that they had no prefer™ ences, and if T were on the ground th: believed that they could effect a com- bination that would secure my election. I wired my acceptance of that proposi- tion, and the next day my broker's of- fice was for rent and I was en route for Alabama by the overland road. Al- 4 though I had never lived in the I was at the time of my election consti- tutionally eligible, for the constitution does not require that a Senator shall be a citizen, but only an inhabitant of his State, and for two months before the election I ‘inhabited’ Alabama to an unlimited extent. I was elected and afterward re-elected. I made her a good Senator, if I do say it myself, and I lasted longer than most of thé carpet- baggers.” There is a fascination in the pursuit of the precfous metals that accompan- ies no other avocation, and-in it men and women cheerfully endure hard- ships and encounter rs. In 1885 my wife and I, enthused by reports of great sllver discoveries, wandered into 2 new camp in Eastern Oregon. From State * a box of “scraps” I extract a letter now yellow with age, which was written by her to an -Eastern friend and never mailed. She says:. “Our cabin stands among the pines and looks the eternal mountains in the face. The last gleam of the setting sun is thus left for my ever-straining eyes, for they are al- ‘ways searching some landscape for suggestion. What strange bits I have filed away for thought, bits broken from every corner of the earth. A glimpse of the Bwiss glaclers., pearly and prismatic, reaches of rose and gamboge from Itallan sunsets, phos- phorescent swirl of tropic sea, conglom- erate belchings of Colorado upheavals, stretches of distant peaks, leaning magicwards, swathed in the warmest of Arizona tints, pulsing flelds of green buds and boughs and golden gates with watery hinges—a world full and noth- ing lost, for a word turns the back- ward keys of memory and the picture is revealed again. “On the other side of the drush fire my husband’s Chinese cork hat gleams among the green pines like a helmet of Navarre, only a good deal ragged and besmeared with a combination ot brush burning results and restaurant tarnish, and no modest pen can do adequate justice to his pantaloons. The general dissolute appearance of this article of ‘wearing apparel is enhanced by cer- tain bagginess eloquently suggestive of limited rations, while little knobs at the knees attest the unrelleved stress at this point, which stress is confirmed by tenacious touches of pine tree gum. Indeed the rear presentation of the en- . tire figure, shoulders and elbows as THE PRECIPICE AND BOTH FELL CAMP, THE RECOIL KICKED THE BURRO AND &GUN OVER INTO TTHE MIDDLE OF TAHE INDIAN well, reminds one of Japanese subjects technically under conventional treat- ment, severely outlined and shorn of lights and shades. My own conditions are not such as to warrant boasting. I use lard for toilet, resin soap for my bath, wornout lawn _tennis shoes, broken-boned corsets and silk stock- ings patched with muslin after the most approved esthetic crazy quilt de- sign. It is for the hope to Lave and to hold In the glittering legacy of na- ture said to be hidden among these snow-capped hills that we, with others, undertake hardships and privations and sleep upon cots and hay, and oc- casionally skip beef, butter, milk and deaserts and go without newspapers and wear linen guiltless of starch or flat- irons end only clean through the pro- cess of hand laundrying in a basin. “The miners—blessing on the big hearts under the blue shirts—bring us ‘specimens’ and ‘samples’ until the mirror upen my improvised toflet table reflects more sulphurets than brushes and more chlorides than combs. The latest addition is a thirty-pound dor- nock covered with greasy little ‘green- ery-yallery’ flakes of pure chloride of silver. More discoveries on both sides of the creek are reported. If but one in twenty fulfllls expectations this will be the largest mining fleld in the land.” Our hoves were not fulfilled, for the ladges “petered” and I returned to law practice. Before I left that section I was employed by a gentleman named Shirley in a cattle case. Among the ldtosyncrastes of - Oregon legislation there is or was a law by which a Grand Jury consisted of only flve mem- bers, and three of these could find an indictment. It was doubtless intended to prevent shooting scrapes among cat- tle owners. When there was a quarrel the disputants, Instead of shooting each other, would have each other Indicted for stealing steers. There was seldom a con- viction, but the prosecuting wit- ness could put his enemy to the cost and vexation of a trial and enjoy the rcasting which his vietim would re- celve from the lips of the lawyers. My client, who was one of the wealthiest cattle owners in Eastern Oregan, was absent in the East at the time the other man’s steer strayed into the Shirley herd, but an indictment was found nevertheless, and I was engaged for the defense. While we were pra- paring for trial the jail and Court- house at Baker City was destroyed by fire and the indictment was burned. Its place could not be supplied and the Grand Jury had been discharged. The next evening, shortly after the arrival of the train from Portland, Shirley came over to the hotel, lfvid with rage, bringing with him a copy of the Ore- gonian. In the press dispatches was a special from Baker City, saying: ‘“The Courthouse was destroyed by fire last night and all the records were burned. It is generally belleved that it was fired by Mr. J. Q. Shirley, in order to get rid of the indictment found against him for cattle stealing.” Shirley wanted to sue the Oregonian and every paper on the coast that co the paragraph for libel and fill eve Jail in Oregon with editors, He quieted down, how- ever, at the suggestion that the Ore- did promptly and fully, not because of Shirleyis demand, but because it found on investigation that it had been De- trayed by its correspondent. Months afterward I met Shirley In San Francisco. “T shall never get rid of that thing. never,” sald he. “Last month I was at the Cattle Dealers’ Con- vention In Cheyenne, and when I named a price for cattle the other fel- low weuld say, “Why, Shirley, you ask as much for steers as though you had bought them,” and after the conven- tion adjourned three highbinders from Gunnison County carme to me and sald they were a committes appointed to walt on me; that they had an old ram- shackle courthouse that they wanted to get rid of, so they could erect a new building; that they understood that I had experience in the business, and they wanted to know what I would charge to go there and set fire to it.” Jack Smith was a litiglous butcher, and his lawyer was a bon vivant. The new wear was fairly on its feet, when Jack bristied into the attorney’s office. “T have called,” said he. “to settle my account. Your meat bill for the year s $685, and I will allow you $500 for your legal services.” “Jack,™ replled the lawyer, “you can make out either your bill or mine, just as you like, but you cannot make out both.” “Oh, why didn’t I ask for your bill before I pre- sented mine?" said Jack. “It was im- prudent,” said the lawyer, “but I am willing to favor you. Suppose we jump accounts and call it square?” “Agreed,” sald the relieved slaughterer of cattle. Is there an Oregonian of the vintage of 1860 who will fall to recollect Sena- tor J. W. Nesmith? His crisp, com- pact, sententious speeches. his breezy style of address and his caustic wit will be long remembered by his col- leagues of what is now the “Million- aires’ Club.” Shortly after his election to the United States Senate a New England Senator approached him In the cloakroom, where he was enjoying an after lunch cigar, and patronizingly inquired: “Well, Brother Nesmith, how does it feel to be a Senator of the United States?” The Oregonian looked up and ex- clalmed: ‘“Well, Senator, when I first came I wondered how it could be that such a man as I am could have been elected a United States Senator. I have been here three weeks, and I wonder now how any of you ever got here.” Nesmith used to tell his friends of his having accepted an Invitation te dine with Jeremiah S. Black. The exi- gencies of life in Oregon demanded for evening dress the old-fashioned long-tailed double-breasted broadcloth frock, which was the very summit of fashion. But Washington was dif- ferent, so the Senator placed a hurry order for a dress sult. It arrived just in time, and with his stalwart form incased In it he hurried to the home of the ‘distinguished Pennsylvanian. The servant showed him into the draw- ing-room and took his card. Nesmith seated himself and waited for some time. Finally Mr. Black appeared arrayed in a dressing gown and slippers. The twain entered into conversation and conversed and conversed and con- versed. Seven o'clock struck, then 8, then 9, then 10. By this time Nesmith was thorqughly acquainted with the history of%Pennsylvania from the time of Willlam Penn, and Black -was pos- sessed of all the details of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Shortly after 10 o'clock Black arose and said, “You will have to excuse me, Senator, for I have an appointment with a lady.” “I wondered,” sald Nesmith, “when dinner would be ready, and I won- dered more what kind of a lady it was that Black had an appointment with at that hour, but the situation was fully explained to me when Black add- ed, ‘You will not forget, Senater, our dinner party to-morrow night.' ™ A bumptious considtuent seeing Ne- smith conversing with a gentleman on Pennsylvania avenue, and being un- mindful of the proprieties of the occa- slon, slapped the Senator on the back and exclaimed, “I say, Nes, if I had your cheek I would get any office in this Goverpment.” Nesmith replied with dignity, “You are mistaken, sir: if you had what you call my cheek with your limited amount of brains, you would get kicked down Pennsyl- vanla avenue every day in the weel. ™