California Communism

How It is Viewed by a Leading Paper at the East.

From the Chicago Tribune.

CALIFORNIA COMMUNISM.

San Francisco and many other of the principal cities of California are at present suffering from one of the worst phases of Communism that has ever afflicted any part of the United States. We print elsewhere a letter from San Francisco that gives some details of the growth and operations of this organization, known as the “Kearney party.” It had its origin in hostility to the Chinese. Its membership is made up of Irish, Germans, French, and Bohemians. It has extended its hostilities to Americans as well as Chinese. It claims to defend the rights of labor, as do Communists everywhere; in reality, it has a hand against all society, and its objects are incendiarism, violence, mob-rule, and plunder. It has carried on its operations with so high a hand, fulminated its threats so openly, and increased so rapidly, that the Press, the Courts, the authorities of San Francisco, have been living under a reign of terrorism. The Press has been afraid to denounce the scoundrels lest the offices might be mobbed. The authorities have not dared to break up the incendiary meetings or arrest the leaders. The Courts have been paralyzed, and the officers of the law have hidden themselves away whenever the Kearneyites have made their appearance. How far they have succeeded in defying the law-abiding sentiment of the community, and how boldly and unblushingly they have issued their pronunciamentos and defied the law, may be inferred from the proceedings of the meeting, which are printed in the letter to which we have referred, and which the San Francisco papers were afraid to publish or comment upon, for fear of mob violence. At this meeting, Kearney, the leading Communist, advocated the lynching of a State Senator who had dared to denounce the ruffianism of the so-called “Workingmen’s Party” of California. He not only urged his dupes to exterminate the Chinese, but to drive the Americans out also, and, if any resistance were made, to fire the city. Under his instructions the members of his party have armed themselves, and are seen upon the streets with pistols and shot-guns. The people of the city are terrorized. The authorities not only do not break up these incendiary meetings, but they are afraid to make any preparations to resist the violence that is threatened. The result is that business men are seriously talking of closing up and removing elsewhere, and insurance companies are raising their rates in anticipation of a fire that will involve widespread destruction.

There was a time when the San Francisco Vigilance Committee would have promptly suppressed Kearney and his mob. Perhaps the spirit of vigilance is not altogether dead yet, and the Committee, when the time comes, may rouse itself and do its work over again with the same power and promptness that made it a terror to thieves and incendiaries years ago. The mistake made by the city authorities was in allowing this movement to gain such headway. It should have been suppressed at the very outset. Kearney should have been sent to the State Prison before this time, and that would have been the end of his rabble of foreign ruffians, who are now defying the law and threatening the lives and property of citizens of San Francisco, because they have had the misfortune to be born of the country and of American parents. The way to suppress Communism is to suppress its leaders and thereby prevent it from spreading. When it is allowed to gather such a head that it can set the law at defiance and organize its schemes of incendiarism and plunder, then it involves serious loss of life and bloodshed. In case the San Francisco mob attempts to carry out its threats, of course, sooner or later, the mob will be put down, if it takes the whole power of the country. When that time comes, the ruffian Kearney should be the first victim of the popular wrath, if the Vigilance Committee takes the scoundrels in hand. If the officers of the law do their duty, then he should be the first man at the gallows. Make short, sharp work of the leaders, and their disreputable rabble of followers will melt away.