is now. And as to ballot-box stuffing and frauds in elections, surely
the worst ever charged against the manipulators of that period, pales
and sinks into insignificance when compared with the colossal fraud
committed in San Francisco, in 1876, by which not only the will of the
people of the State was overborne, but also the will of the people of
the United States. Yet the perpetrators of the unparalleled fraud have
never been called to account or punished; to the contrary they are
recognized as gentlemen of respectability, even by those who, in 1856,
forcibly and lawlessly, as Vigilance Committee members, banishement for
stuffing ballot-boxes to secure merely a local advantage by the success
of a ward ticket. Straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel never had
more conspicuous illustration. And the burning fact remains incredible
that among the members of the Executive Committee were some who had
themselves obtained office by bribery and corruption, by calling into
play the stuffing of ballot-boxes, and by all the wicked and infamous
means which were at that time practiced. Another member was, as I have
stated before, a felon who had served his time in the Ohio State Prison;
another, still living and a highly respectable church member who
professes holy horror of fraud, had in early years colluded with his
brother to get possession of valuable wharf property, of which the
brother was agent and care-taker by appointment of the owner, who had
returned to his home in the East, to be gone a year. The scheme of these
brothers was a fraud of villainous conception, but it was clumsy and
therefore failed. On his return the Courts restored the property to the
rightful owner. I might go on and point out other members of the
Executive Committee who had committed deeds which, had they been duly
brought to answer in the Courts, would have put upon them the felon's
brand and the convict's stripes, in some instances; in others, pilloried
them as rogues and swindlers, unworthy of trust, unfit for respectable
association.