LYNCH LAW.
“Californians are called the scum of the earth, yet their great city is
the best policed in the world,” said a New York friend to me, when he
heard that I thought of crossing the continent to San Francisco.
“Them New Yorkers is a sight too fond of looking after other people‘s
morals,” replied an old “Forty-niner,” to whom I repeated this phrase,
having first toned it down however. “Still,” he went on, “our history‘s
baddish, but it ain‘t for us to play showman to our own worst
pints:--let every man skin his own skunk!”
The story of the early days of San Francisco, as to which my curiosity
was thus excited, is so curious an instance of the development of an
English community under the most inauspicious circumstances, that the
whole time which I spent in the city itself I devoted to hearing the
tale from those who knew the actors. Not only is the history of the two
Vigilance Committees in itself characteristic, but it works in with what
I had gathered in Kansas, and Illinois, and Colorado as to the operation
of the claim-clubs; and the stories, taken together, form a typical
picture of the rise of a New English country.
The discovery of gold in 1848 brought down on luckless California the
idle, the reckless, the vagabonds first of Polynesia, then of all the
world. Street fighting, public gaming, masked balls given by unknown
women and paid for nobody knew how, but attended by governor,
supervisors, and alcalde--all these were minor matters by the side of
the general undefined ruffianism of the place. Before the end of 1849,
San Francisco presented on a gigantic scale much the same appearance
that Helena in Montana wears in 1866.
Desperadoes poured in from all sides, the best of the bad flocking off
to the mines, while the worst among the villains--those who lacked
energy as well as moral sense--remained in the city, to raise by
thieving or in the gambling-booth the “pile” that they were too indolent
to earn by pick and pan. Hundreds of “emancipists” from Sydney, “old
lags” from Norfolk Island, the pick of the criminals of England, still
further trained and confirmed in vice and crime by the experiences of
Macquarie Harbor and Port Arthur, rushed to San Francisco to continue a
career which the vigilance of the police made hopeless in Tasmania and
New South Wales. The floating vice of the Pacific ports of South America
soon gathered to a spot where there were not only men to fleece, but men
who, being fleeced, could pay. The police were necessarily few, for,
appoint a man to-day, and to-morrow he was gone to the placers with some
new friend; those who could be prevailed upon to remain a fortnight in
the force were accessible to bribes from the men they were set to watch.
They themselves admitted their inaction, but ascribed it to the
continual change of place among the criminals, which prevented the
slightest knowledge of their characters and haunts. The Australian
jail-birds formed a quarter known as “Sydney Town,” which soon became
what the Bay of Islands had been ten years before--the Alsatia of the
Pacific. In spite of daily murders, not a single criminal was hanged.
The ruffians did not all agree: there were jealousies among the various
bands; feuds between the Australians and Chilians; between the Mexicans
and the New Yorkers. Under the various names of “Hounds,” “Regulators,”
“Sydney ducks,” and “Sydney coves,” the English convict party organized
themselves in opposition to the Chilenos as well as to the police and
law-abiding citizens. Gangs of villains, whose sole bond of union was
robbery or murder, marched, armed with bludgeons and revolvers, every
Sunday afternoon, to the sound of music, unhindered through the streets,
professing that they were “guardians of the community” against the
Spaniards, Mexicans, and South Americans.
At last a movement took place among the merchants and reputable
inhabitants which resulted in the break-up of the Australian gangs. By
an uprising of the American citizens of San Francisco, in response to a
proclamation by T. M. Leavenworth, the alcalde, twenty of the most
notorious among the “Hounds” were seized and shipped to China: it is
believed that some were taken south in irons, and landed near Cape Horn.
“Anywhere so that they could not come back,” as my informant said.
For a week or two things went well, but a fresh impour of rogues and
villains soon swamped the volunteer police by sheer force of numbers;
and in February, 1851, occurred an instance of united action among the
citizens which is noticeable as the forerunner of the Vigilance
Committees. A Mr. Jansen had been stunned by a blow from a slung-shot,
and his person and premises rifled by Australian thieves. During the
examination of two prisoners arrested on suspicion, five thousand
citizens gathered round the City Hall, and handbills were circulated in
which it was proposed that the prisoners should be lynched. In the
afternoon an attempt to seize the men was made, but repulsed by another
section of the citizens--the Washington Guard. A meeting was held on the
plaza, and a committee appointed to watch the authorities, and prevent a
release. A well-known citizen, Mr. Brannan, made a speech, in which he
said: “We, the people, are the mayor, the recorder, and the laws.” The
alcalde addressed the crowd, and suggested, by way of compromise, that
they should elect a jury, which should sit in the regular court, and try
the prisoners. This was refused, and the people elected not only a jury,
but three judges, a sheriff, a clerk, a public prosecutor, and two
counsel for the defense. This court then tried the prisoners in their
absence, and the jury failed to agree--nine were for conviction, and
three were doubtful. “Hang ’em, anyhow; majority rules,” was the shout,
but the popular judges stood firm, and discharged their jury, while the
people acquiesced. The next day the prisoners were tried and convicted
by the regular court, although they were ultimately found to be innocent
men.
Matters now went from bad to worse: five times San Francisco was swept
from end to end by fires known to have been helped on, if not originally
kindled, by incendiaries in the hope of plunder; and when, by the fires
of May and June, 1851, hardly a house was left untouched, the pious
Bostonians held up their hands, and cried “Gomorrah!”
Immediately after the discovery that the June fire was not an accident,
the Vigilance Committee was formed, being self-appointed, and
consisting of the foremost merchants in the place. This was on the 7th
of June, according to my friend; on the 9th, according to the
Californian histories. It was rumored that the committee consisted of
two hundred citizens; it was known that they were supported by the whole
of the city press. They published a declaration, in which they stated
that there is “no security for life or property under the ... law as now
administered.” This they ascribed to the “quibbles of the law,” the
“corruption of the police,” the “insecurity of prisons,” the “laxity of
those who pretend to administer justice.” The secret instructions to the
committee contained a direction that the members should at once assemble
at the committee-room whenever signals, consisting of two taps on a
bell, were heard at intervals of one minute. The committee was organized
with president, vice-president, secretary, treasurer, sergeant-at-arms,
standing committee on qualifications, and standing committee of finance.
No one was to be admitted a member unless he were a “respectable
citizen, and approved by the Committee on Qualifications.”
The very night of their organization, according to the histories, or
three nights later, according to my friend Mr. A----, the work of the
committee began. Some boatmen at Central Wharf saw something which led
them to follow out into the Yerba Buena cove a man, whom they captured
after a sharp row. As they over-hauled him, he threw overboard a safe,
just stolen from a bank, but this was soon fished out. He was at once
carried off to the committee-room of the Vigilants, and the bell of the
Monumental Engine Company struck at intervals, as the rule prescribed.
Not only the committee, but a vast surging crowd collected, although
midnight was now past. A---- was on the plaza, and says that every man
was armed, and evidently disposed to back up the committee. According to
the _Alta Californian_, the chief of the police came up a little before
1 A.M., and tried to force an entrance to the room; but he was met,
politely enough, with a show of revolvers sufficient to annihilate his
men, so he judged it prudent to retreat.
At one o‘clock, the bell of the engine-house began to toll, and the
crowd became excited. Mr. Brannan came out of the committee-room, and,
standing on a mound of sand, addressed the citizens. As well as my
friend could remember, his words were these: “Gentlemen, the
man--Jenkins by name--a Sydney convict, whose supposed offense you know,
has had a fair trial before eighty gentlemen, and been unanimously found
guilty by them. I have been deputed by the committee to ask whether it
is your pleasure that he be hanged.” “Ay!” from every man in the crowd.
“He will be given an hour to prepare for death, and the Rev. Mr. Mines
has been already sent for to minister to him. Is this your pleasure?”
Again a storm of “Ay!” Nothing was known in the crowd of the details of
the trial, except that counsel had been heard on the prisoner‘s behalf.
For another hour the excitement of the crowd was permitted to continue,
but at two o‘clock the doors of the committee-room were thrown open, and
Jenkins was seen smoking a cigar. Mr. A---- said that he did not believe
the prisoner expected a rescue, but thought that an exhibition of pluck
might make popular with the crowd, and save him. A procession of
Vigilants with drawn Colts was then formed, and set off in the moonlight
across the four chief streets to the plaza. Some of the people shouted
“To the flagstaff!” but there came a cry, “Don‘t desecrate the Liberty
Pole. To the old adobe! the old adobe!” and to the old adobe
custom-house the prisoner was dragged. In five minutes he was hanging
from the roof, three hundred citizens lending a hand at the rope. At six
in the morning, A---- went home, but he heard that the police cut down
the body about that time, and carried it to the coroner‘s house.
An inquest was held next day. The city officers swore that they had done
all they could to prevent the execution, but they refused to give up the
names of the Vigilance Committee. The members themselves were less
cautious. Mr. Brannan and others came forward of their own proper
motion, and disclosed all the circumstances of the trial: 140 of the
committee backed them up by a written protestation against interference
with the Vigilants, to which their signatures were appended. Protest and
evidence have been published, not only in the newspapers of the time,
but in the San Francisco “Annals.” The coroner‘s jury found a verdict of
“Strangulation, consequent on the concerted action of a body of citizens
calling themselves a Committee of Vigilance.” An hour after the verdict
was given, a mass meeting of the whole of the respectable inhabitants
was held in the plaza, and a resolution approving of the action of the
committee passed by acclamation.
In July, 1851, the committee hanged another man on the Market Street
wharf, and appointed a sub-committee of thirty to board every ship that
crossed the bar, seize all persons suspected of being “Sydney Coves,”
and reship them to New South Wales.
In August came the great struggle between the Vigilants and constituted
authority. It was sharp and decisive. Whittaker and McKenzie, two Sydney
Coves, were arrested by the committee for various crimes, and sentenced
to death. The next day, Sheriff Hays seized them on a writ of habeas
corpus, in the rooms of the committee. The bell was tolled: the citizens
assembled, the Vigilants told their story, the men were seized once
more, and by noon they were hanging from the loft of the
committee-house, by the ordinary lifting tackle for heavy goods. Fifteen
thousand people were present, and approved. “After this,” said A----,
“there could be no mistake about the citizens supporting the committee.”
By September, the Vigilants had transported all the “Coves” on whom they
could lay hands; so they issued a proclamation, declaring that for the
future they would confine themselves to aiding the law by tracing out
and guarding criminals; and in pursuance of their decision, they soon
afterward helped the authorities in preventing the lynching of a
ship-captain for cruelty to his men.
After the great sweep of 1851, things became steadily worse again till
they culminated in 1855, a year to which my friend looked backed with
horror. Not counting Indians, there were four hundred persons died by
violence in California in that single year. Fifty of these were lynched,
a dozen were hanged by law, a couple of dozen shot by the sheriffs and
tax-collectors in the course of their duty. The officers did not escape
scot free. The under-sheriff of San Francisco was shot in Mission
Street, in broad daylight, by a man upon whom he was trying to execute a
writ of ejectment.
Judges, mayors, supervisors, politicians, all were bad alike. The
merchants of the city were from New England, New York, and foreign
lands; but the men who assumed the direction of public affairs, and
especially of public funds, were Southerners, many of them “Border
Ruffians” of the most savage stamp--“Pikes,” as they were called, from
Pike‘s County in Missouri, from which their leaders came. Instead of
banding themselves together to oppose the laws, these rogues and
ruffians found it easier to control the making of them. Their favorite
method of defeating their New England foes was by the simple plan of
“stuffing,” or filling the ballot-box with forged tickets when the
elections were concluded. Two Irishmen--Casey and Sullivan--were their
tools in this shameful work. Werth, a Southerner, the leader of Casey‘s
gang, had been denounced in the _San Francisco Bulletin_ as the murderer
of a man named Kittering; and Casey, meeting James King, editor of the
_Bulletin_, shot him dead in Montgomery Street in the middle of the day.
Casey and one of his assistants--a man named Cora--were hanged by the
people as Mr. King‘s body was being carried to the grave, and Sullivan
committed suicide the same day.
Books were opened for the enrollment of the names of those who were
prepared to support the committee: nine thousand grown white males
inscribed themselves within four days. Governor Johnson at once declared
that he should suppress the committee, but the City of Sacramento
prevented war by offering a thousand men for the Vigilants’ support, the
other Californian cities following suit. The committee got together 6000
stand of arms and thirty cannon, and fortified their rooms with
earthworks and barricades. The governor, having called on the general
commanding the Federal forces at Benicia, who wisely refused to
interfere, marched upon the city, was surrounded, and taken prisoner
with all his forces without the striking of a blow.
Having now obtained the control of the State government, the committee
proceeded to banish all the “Pikes” and “Pukes.” Four were hanged,
forty transported, and many ran away. This done, the committee prepared
an elaborate report upon the property and finances of the State, and
then, after a great parade, ten regiments strong, upon the plaza and
through the streets, they adjourned forever, and “the thirty-three” and
their ten thousand backers retired into private life once more, and put
an end to this singular spectacle of the rebellion of a free people
against rulers nominally elected by itself. As my friend said, when he
finished his long yarn, “This has more than archæologic interest: we may
live to see a similar Vigilance Committee in New York.”
For my own part, I do not believe that an uprising against bad
government is possible in New York City, because there the supporters of
bad government are a majority of the people. Their interest is the other
way: in increased city taxes they evidently lose far more than, as a
class, they gain by what is spent among them in corruption; but when
they come to see this, they will not rebel against their corrupt
leaders, but elect those whom they can trust. In San Francisco, the case
was widely different: through the ballot frauds, a majority of the
citizens were being infamously misgoverned by a contemptible minority,
and the events of 1856 were only the necessary acts of the majority to
regain their power, coupled with certain exceptional acts in the shape
of arbitrary transportation of “Pikes” and Southern rowdies, justified
by the exceptional circumstances of the young community. At Melbourne,
under circumstances somewhat similar, our English colonists, instead of
setting up a committee, built Pentridge Stockade with walls some thirty
feet high, and created a military police, with almost arbitrary power.
The difference is one of words. The whirl of life in a young gold
country not only prevents the best men entering the political field, and
so forces citizens to exercise their right of choice only between
candidates of equal badness, but so engrosses the members of the
community who exercise the ballot as to prevent the detection of fraud
till it has ruled for years. Throughout young countries generally you
find men say: “Yes! we‘re robbed, we know; but no one has time to go
into that.” “I‘m for the old men,” said a Californian elector once, “for
they‘ve plundered us so long that they‘re gorged, and can‘t swallow any
more.” “No,” said another, “let‘s have fresh blood. Give every man a
chance of robbing the State. Shape and share alike.” The wonder is, not
that in such a State as California was till lately the machinery of
government should work unevenly, but that it should work at all.
Democracy has never endured so rough a test as that from which it has
triumphantly emerged in the Golden State and City.
The public spirit with which the merchants came forward and gave time
and money to the cause of order is worthy of all praise, and the
rapidity with which the organization of a new government was carried
through is an instance of the singular power of our race for building up
the machinery of self-government under conditions the most unpromising.
Instead of the events of 1856 having been a case of opposition to law
and order, they will stand in history as a remarkable proof of the
law-abiding character of a people who vindicated justice by a
demonstration of overwhelming force, laid down their arms, and returned
in a few weeks to the peaceable routine of business life.
If, in the merchant founders of the Vigilance Committees of San
Francisco we can see the descendants of the justice-loving Germans of
the time of Tacitus, I found in another class of vigilants the moral
offspring of Alfred‘s village aldermen of our own Saxon age. From Mr.
William M. Byers, now editor of the _Rocky Mountain News_, I had heard
the story of the early settlers’ land-law in Missouri; in Stanton‘s
office in Denver City, I had seen the records of the Arrapahoe County
Claim-club, with which he had been connected at the first settlement of
Colorado; but at San José, I heard details of the settlers’
custom-law--the Californian “grand-coûtumier,” it might be called--which
convinced me that, in order to find the rudiments of all that,
politically speaking, is best and most vigorous in the Saxon mind, you
must seek countries in which Saxon civilization itself is in its
infancy. The greater the difficulties of the situation, the more racy
the custom, the more national the law.
When a new State began to be “settled up”--that is, its lands entered
upon by actual settlers, not landsharks--the inhabitants often found
themselves in the wilderness, far in advance of attorneys, courts, and
judges. It was their custom when this occurred to divide the territory
into districts of fifteen or twenty miles square, and form for each a
“claim-club” to protect the land-claims, or property of the members.
Whenever a question of title arose, a judge and jury were chosen from
among the members to hear and determine the case. The occupancy title
was invariably protected up to a certain number of acres, which was
differently fixed by different clubs, and varied in those of which I
have heard the rules from 100 to 250 acres, averaging 150. The United
States “Homestead” and “Pre-emption” laws were founded on the practice
of these clubs. The claim-clubs interfered only for the protection of
their members, but they never scrupled to hang willful offenders
against their rules, whether members or outsiders. Execution of the
decrees of the club was generally left to the county sheriff, if he was
a member, and in this case a certain air of legality was given to the
local action. It is perhaps not too much to say that a Western sheriff
is an irresponsible official, possessed of gigantic powers, but seldom
known to abuse them. He is a Cæsar, chosen for his honesty,
fearlessness, clean shooting, and quick loading, by men who know him
well: if he breaks down, he is soon deposed, and a better man chosen for
dictator. I have known a Western paper say: “Frank is our man for
sheriff, next October. See the way he shot one of the fellows who robbed
his store, and followed up the other, and shot him too the next day.
Frank is the boy for us.” In such a state of society as this, the
distinction between law and lynch-law can scarcely be said to exist, and
in the eyes of every Western settler the claim-club backed by the
sheriff‘s name was as strong and as full of the majesty of the law as
the Supreme Court of the United States. Mr. Byers told me of a case of
the infliction of death-punishment by a claim-club which occurred in
Kansas after the “Homestead” law was passed allowing the occupant when
he had tilled and improved the land for five years, to purchase it at
one and a quarter dollars an acre. A man settled on a piece of land, and
labored on it for some years. He then “sold it,” which he had, of
course, no power to do, the land being still the property of the United
States. Having done this, he went and “pre-empted” it under the
Homestead Act, at the government price. When he attempted to eject the
man to whom he had assumed to sell, the club ordered the sheriff to “put
the man away,” and he was never seen again. Perhaps Mr. Byers was the
sheriff; he seemed to have the details at his fingers’ ends, and his
later history in Denver, where he once had the lynching rope round his
neck for exposing gamblers, testifies to his boldness.
Some of the rascalities which the claim-clubs were expected to put down
were ingenious enough. Sometimes a man would build a dozen houses on a
block of land, and, going there to enter on possession after they were
complete, would find that in the night the whole of them had
disappeared. Frauds under the Homestead Act were both many and strange.
Men were required to prove that they had on the land a house of at least
ten feet square. They have been known to whittle out a toy-house with
their bowie, and, carrying it to the land, to measure it in the presence
of a friend--twelve inches by thirteen. In court the pre-emptor,
examining his own witness, would say, “What are the dimensions of that
house of mine?” “Twelve by thirteen.” “That will do.” In Kansas a
log-house of the regulation size was fitted up on wheels, and let at ten
dollars a day, in order that it might be wheeled on to different lots,
to be sworn to as a house upon the land. Men have been known to make a
window-sash and frame, and keep them inside of their windowless huts, to
swear that they had a window in their house--another of the requirements
of the act. It is a singular mark of deference to the traditions of a
Puritan ancestry that such accomplished liars as the Western landsharks
should feel it necessary to have any foundation whatever for their lies;
but not only in this respect are they a curious race. One of their
peculiarities is that, however wealthy they may be, they will never
place their money out at interest, never sink it in a speculation,
however tempting, when there is no prospect of almost immediate
realization. To turn their money over often, at whatever risk, is with
these men an axiom. The advanced-guard of civilization, they push out
into an unknown wilderness, and seize upon the available lots, the
streams, the springs, the river bottoms, the falls or
“water-privileges,” and then, using their interest in the territorial
legislature--using, perhaps, direct corruption in some cases--they
procure the location of the State capital upon their lands, or the
passage of the railroads through their valleys. The capital of Nebraska
has been fixed in this manner at a place two hundred and fifty miles
from the nearest settlement. A newspaper appeared suddenly, dated from
“Lincoln City, center of Nebraska Territory,” but published in reality
in Omaha. To cope with such fellows, Western sheriffs must be no
ordinary men.
Thanks to the Vigilance Committees, California stands now before the
other far-western States. Rowdyism is being put down as the God-fearing
Northerners gain ground. It may still be dangerous to stroke your beard
in a bar-room at Placerville or El Dorado; “a gentleman in the loafing
and chancing line” may still be met with in Sacramento; here and there a
Missourian “Pike,” as yet unhung, may boast that he can whip his weight
in wild cats,--but San Francisco has at least reached the age of outward
decorum, has shut up public gaming-houses, and supports four church
papers.
In Colorado lynch law is not as yet forgotten: the day we entered Denver
the editor of the _Gazette_ expressed, “on historical grounds,” his deep
regret at the cutting down of two fine cottonwood-trees that stood on
Cherry Creek. When we came to talk to him we found that the “history”
alluded to was that of the “escape up” these trees of many an early
inhabitant of Denver City. “There‘s the tree we used to put the jury
under, and that‘s the one we hanged ’em on. Put a cart under the tree,
and the boy standing on it, with the rope around him; give him time for
a pray, then smack the whip, and ther’ you air.”
In Denver we were reserved upon the subject of Vigilance Committees, for
it is dangerous sometimes to make close inquiries as to their
constitution. While I was in Leavenworth a man was hanged by the mob at
Council Bluffs for asking the names of the Vigilants who had hanged a
friend of his the year before. We learned enough, however, at Denver to
show that the committee in that city still exists; and in Virginia and
Carson I know that the organizations are continued; but offenders are
oftener shot quietly than publicly hanged, in order to prevent an
outcry, and avoid the vengeance of the relatives. The verdict of the
jury never fails to be respected, but acquittal is almost as unknown as
mercy to those convicted. Innocent men are seldom tried before such
juries, for the case must be clear before the sheriff will run the risk
of being shot in making the arrest. When the man‘s fate is settled, the
sheriff drives out quietly in his buggy, and next day men say when they
meet, “Poor ----‘s escaped;” or else it is, “The sheriff‘s shot. Who‘ll
run for office?”
It will be seen from the history of the Vigilance Committees, as I heard
their stories from Kansas to California, that they are to be divided
into two classes, with sharply-marked characteristics--those where
committee hangings, transportations, warnings, are alike open to the
light of day, such as the committees of San Francisco in 1856, and the
Sandwich Islands in 1866, and those--unhappily the vast majority--where
all is secret and irresponsible. Here, in San Francisco, the committee
was the government; elsewhere, the organization was less wide, and the
members, though always shrewdly guessed at, never known. Neither class
should be necessary, unless when a gold rush brings down upon a State
the desperadoes of the world; but there is this encouragement even in
the history of lynch law: that, although English settlements often start
wild, they never have been known to go wild.
The men who formed the second Vigilance Committee of San Francisco are
now the governor, Senators, and Congressmen of California, the mayors
and sheriffs of her towns. Nowadays the citizens are remarkable, even
among Americans, for their love of law and order. Their city, though
still subject to a yearly deluge from the outpourings of all the
overcrowded slums of Europe, is, as the New Yorker said, the best
policed in all America. In politics, too, it is remarked that party
organizations have no power in this State from the moment that they
attempt to nominate corrupt or time-serving men. The people break loose
from their caucuses and conventions, and vote in a body for their honest
enemies, rather than for corrupt friends. They have the advantage of
singular ability, for there is not an average man in California.