“That may be, but you cannot speak against such rich people; San Francisco society will turn against you,” was the rejoinder.
“Then it is a crime to speak of the wrongs we have suffered, but it is not a crime to commit those wrongs.”
“I don't know. I am not a moralist. But this I do know, that if you accuse those rich men of having done wrong, the society people will give you the cold shoulder.”
“Oh, very well, let it be so. Let the guilty rejoice and go unpunished, and the innocent suffer ruin and desolation. I slander no one, but shall speak the truth.”
CONCLUSION.—Out with the Invader.
“Let infamy be that man's portion who uses his power to corrupt, to ruin, to debase,” says Channing, in righteous indignation, speaking of the atrocities perpetrated by Napoleon the First to gratify his vanity and ambition. Further on, with increasing earnestness, Channing adds: “In anguish of spirit we exclaim: ‘How long will an abject world kiss the foot that tramples it? How long shall crime find shelter in its very aggravations and excess?’”
If Channing lived now, his ‘anguish of spirit’ would be far greater to find in his own country, firmly enthroned, a power that corrupts, ruins and debases as utterly as that which he so eloquently deplored, and his own fellow-citizens—the free-born Americans—ready and willing to kiss the foot that tramples them!
Not infamy, but honor and wealth, is the portion of the men who corrupt and ruin and debase in this country. Honor and wealth for the Napoleons of this land, whose power the sons of California can neither check, nor thwart, nor escape, nor withstand. And in California, as in France, “crime finds shelter in its very aggravations and excess,” for after ten years of fighting in Congress against legislation that would have given to the people of the Southern States and the Pacific Coast a competing railway; and after fighting against creating a sinking fund to re-imburse moneys due to the Government, and fighting against laws to regulate freights and fares on a fair basis, they (the Napoleons) refuse to pay taxes on their gigantic property, thus making it necessary for the Governor of California to call an extra session of the Legislature to devise some new laws which will compel those defiant millionaires to pay taxes, and not leave upon the shoulders of poor people the onerous duty of defraying public expenses.
Is not this “aggravation of excess?” Excess of defiance? Excess of lawlessness? How insidiously these monopolists began their work of accumulation, which has culminated in a power that not only eludes the law of the land, but defies, derides it! They were poor men. They came before the Government at Washington, and before the people of California, as suppliant petitioners, humbly begging for aid to construct a railroad. The aid was granted most liberally, and as soon as they accumulated sufficient capital to feel rich they began their work of eluding and defying the law. They became insolent, flinging defiance, as if daring the law to touch them, and truly, the law thus far has been powerless with them. At Washington they won their first victories against the American people; and now California has the shame of seeing that she has not the power to enforce her laws upon the men she made rich. The Legislature convened and adjourned, and there is no way yet of compelling the insolent millionaires to pay their taxes or regulate their rates on freights and fares!
It seems now that unless the people of California take the law in their own hands, and seize the property of those men, and confiscate it, to re-imburse the money due the people, the arrogant corporation will never pay. They are so accustomed to appropriate to themselves what rightfully belongs to others, and have so long stood before the world in defiant attitude, that they have become utterly insensible to those sentiments of fairness animating law-abiding men of probity and sense of justice.