While there will be no hesitation or vacillation in a decisive treatment of the guilty this warning is especially intended to protect and save the innocent.
In Testimony Whereof, I hereunto set my hand and cause the seal of the United States to be hereto affixed. Done at the City of Washington this eighth day of July, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and ninety-four, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one-hundred and eighteenth.
By the President, GROVER CLEVELAND.
W. Q. Gresham, Secretary.
All day, Monday and Tuesday, the President’s proclamation was the absorbing topic of conversation. We felt, that it was no more nor less than a declaration of war against the existing state of lawlessness, and that the long-threatened storm was soon to break. That we were to be reinforced by the regulars was now an assured fact, and their arrival was looked for daily. The flame from the torch of the strikers, that had laid property, worth millions of dollars, in ashes at Chicago leaped to the telegraph wires and swept across the country, firing the Sacramento strikers with a reckless spirit of lawlessness and a resolution to sustain their position at any cost and by any means. We felt that our present inaction would soon give way to more stirring scenes, the serious nature of which would admit of little joking.
During all this excitement the leaders of the Keeley Club were very busy spreading the principles of their doctrine; and were so successful that numbers of applications for admission to the charmed circle of the flowing bowl were daily received. Tuesday morning, after receiving their usual doses of malaria-killing quinine from the hands of Dr. O’Malley, High Priest Lang, Drs. Kennedy, Hayes and Burdick had a short consultation, and decided to take immediate action with reference to the applications that had been received. Secretary Hayes was instructed to inform all the applicants that an open meeting of the Keeley Club would be held that afternoon at two P. M. in the German tent.
The occupants of the German tent at once began to make preparations for the reception and entertainment of their distinguished guests. A collection was taken up and William Baumgartner intrusted with the perilous task of buying a keg of beer, and transporting it to the tent. This he did with much boldness and address. The meeting of the Keeley Club was now an assured success. Two o’clock found an overflow gathering at the German tent. With the diplomatic view of getting those present in the proper state of mind for what was to follow, to prepare the soil, as it were, for the seed, Dr. Burdick suggested, that as the heat was very great, and every one in a chronic state of thirst, it would be well to serve some liquid refreshments. This suggestion met with approval from all sides and “Punch” Zimmerman did Trojan work for the next ten minutes at the tap. With a few well-chosen remarks Al Heeth presented the Hon. Dr. Lang, High Priest of the Inner Circle of the Flowing Bowl, whose appearance was greeted with a hearty round of applause. The learned doctor, in an eloquent address, punctured by applause, and numerous invitations to imbibe, which he did not let the dignity of his office prevent him from accepting, dwelt on the history of the Keeley Club, past and present, comparing the present gathering to the Bacchic meetings and revels of the dim and classic past, and growing poetic quoted from “Alexander’s Feast,” by Dryden:
“The praise of Bacchus, then the sweet musician sung,
Of Bacchus ever fair, and ever young.
The jolly god in triumph comes,