THE TWO OPPONENTS CAME NEARER
From “The Iliad of Sandy Bar”
Frederic Remington, del.
The death of this man was one of the most impressive scenes ever witnessed upon this blood-stained earth. Sentence having been passed upon the prisoner the Committee, numbering one thousand men, came down from the hall where they met and formed in the street, three abreast. They comprised, with some exceptions, the best, the most substantial, the most public-spirited citizens of San Francisco. In the centre was Stuart, handcuffed and pinioned, but perfectly self-possessed and cool. A gallows had been erected some distance off, and the procession moved up Battery Street, followed by a great throng of men. There was no confusion, no outcry, no apparent excitement,—not a sound, indeed, except the tread of many feet upon the planked streets, every footfall sounding the prisoner’s knell.
It was of this event that Bret Harte wrote in his Bohemian Days in San Francisco: “Under the reign of the Committee the lawless and vicious class were more appalled by the moral spectacle of several thousand black-coated, serious-minded business men in embattled procession than by mere force of arms.”
When they reached the gallows, a rope was placed around the prisoner’s neck, and even then, except for a slight paleness, there was no change in his appearance. Amid the breathless silence of the whole assemblage Stuart, standing under the gallows, said, “I die reconciled. My sentence is just.” His crimes had been many, and he seemed to accept his death as the proper and almost welcome result of his deeds. He was a man of intellect, and, hardened criminal though he was, the instinct of expiation asserted itself in his breast.
In July, 1851, a Spanish woman was tried and condemned by an impromptu vigilance committee for killing an American who, she declared, had insulted her. Being sentenced to be hanged forthwith, she carefully arranged her dress, neatly coiled her hair, and walked quietly and firmly to the gallows. There she made a short speech, saying that she would do the same thing again if she were permitted to live, and were insulted in the same way. Then she bade the crowd farewell, adjusted the noose with her own hands, and so passed bravely away.
A few years later at Moquelumne Hill, a young Welshman, scarcely more than a boy, met death in a very similar manner, and for a similar offence. On the scaffold he turned to one of the by-standers, and said, “Did you ever know anything bad of me before this affair occurred?” The answer was, “No, Jack.” “Well,” said the youth, “tell those Camp Saco fellows that I would do the same thing again and be hung rather than put up with an insult.” Men like these died for a point of honor, as much as did Alexander Hamilton.
But far higher was the heroism of those who suffered or died for others, and not for themselves. No event, not even the discovery of gold, stirred California more profoundly than did the death of James King. In 1856, King, the editor of the “Bulletin,” was waging single-handed a vigorous warfare against the political corruption then rife in California, and especially against the supineness of the city officials in respect to gambling and prostitution. He had given out that he would not accept a challenge to a duel, but he was well aware of the risk that he ran. San Francisco, even at that time, indulged in an easy toleration of vice, and only some striking, some terrible event could have aroused the conscience of the public.
Among the city officials whose hatred Mr. King had incurred was James Casey, a typical New York politician, and a former convict, yet not wholly a bad man. The two men, King and Casey, really represented two stages of morality, two kinds of government. Their personal conflict was in a condensed form the clashing of the higher and the lower ideals. Casey, meeting King on the street, called upon him to “draw and defend himself”; but King, being without a weapon, calmly folded his arms and faced his enemy. Casey fired, and King fell to the ground, mortally wounded.
“It was expedient that one man should die for the people”; and the death of King did far more than his life could have done to purify the political and social atmosphere of California. On the day following the murder, a Vigilance Committee was organized, and an Executive Committee, consisting chiefly of those who had managed the first Vigilance Committee in 1851, was chosen as the practical ruler of the city. It was supported by a band of three thousand men, distributed in companies, armed, officered and well drilled. For two months and a half the Executive Committee remained in office, exercising its power with marked judgment and moderation. Four men were hung, many more were banished, and the city was purged. Having accomplished its work the Committee disbanded, but its members and sympathizers secured control of the municipal government through the ordinary legal channels, and for twenty years administered the affairs of the city with honesty and economy.