Rhinocrisy

This kid has just discovered a candy store, one I’ve been wishing for since I came to San Francisco: digital newspaper archives, going back to 1869, of the San Francisco Chronicle.^* Here’s a piece of flavor, a quote from William Coleman, head of the second Vigilance Committee. If you’re unfamiliar, the Vigilance committees were fascinating bits of early San Francisco history, spontaneous, but extremely well-organized and orderly, expressions of public wrath against corruption and criminality. In this case, the group that Coleman spoke for formed to deal with one James Casey, a felon and apparently low character elected to the position of district supervisor. Casey responded to allegations of ballot-stuffing (and other criminality) by newspaper editor James King by waiting for King and shooting him in the chest. He then surrendered himself, confident of the protection of the authorities. Unfortunately for him, the vigilance committee speedily formed (with two thousand men swearing the oath), and in a matter of days “encouraged” the sheriff to give up Casey, tried him, and hanged him. Quoting Coleman:

Who made the laws and set agents over them? The people.
Who saw those laws neglected, disregarded, abused, trampled on? The people.
Who had the right to protect those laws and administer where their servants had failed? The people.
The people are the power; it is theirs by birthright, and when they delegate it, it is expressed and implied that upon wrongdoing the servants shall be pushed aside, formally or informally, and their places promptly filled by other and better agencies.

Enough to make any anarchist teary-eyed.