THE KEARNEY AGITATION IN CALIFORNIA. 447 



orable Bilks," a name which derived its significance from the number 

 of ex-Honorables in their ranks, and which stuck so tightly that they 

 even began to speak of themselves as " the Bilks." As showing how 

 much agrarianism there is in the new Constitution, the candidate of 

 that party for Governor, an ardent supporter of the instrument, is the 

 largest farmer in the State, the owner of something like a quarter of a 

 million acres ! 



Both Republicans and "VVorkingmen ran State tickets, while the 

 Democratic party degenerated into a sort of "price club," ready to 

 trade nominations with anybody who would make a combination. In 

 this three-cornered contest the Republicans carried the State by a 

 plurality, except where the other parties were united on the same can- 

 didate, and except as to San Francisco. Here the Workingnien's ticket 

 was headed by the Rev. Dr. Kalloch, a leading Baptist clergyman 

 well known at the East, and of great ability as a stump-speaker, who in 

 the beginning of these events had the largest Chinese Sunday-school 

 in the city, and preached the virtues of dealing with mobs by loading 

 with grape and firing low, but who, when the movement assumed po- 

 litical force, shut up his Chinese Sunday-school and preached in such a 

 different key that he completely captured the "VVorkingmen, and was 

 finally (though not by Kearney's wish) nominated by them for Mayor. 

 The crack of De Young's pistol from behind the curtain of a coupe, 

 fired Dr. Kalloch into the mayoralty and gave the Workingmen several 

 municipal officers and a number of members of the Legislature, besides 

 such candidates as had united their nomination with that of other par- 

 ties. But about none of the men thus carried into office in whole or 

 in part by the Workingmen's vote is there anything socialistic or com- 

 munistic. Tbey are merely ordinary office-seekers who took advantage 

 of the Workingmen's organization as giving a certain vote, and who, 

 though generally they would have endorsed communism had it been 

 popular, would have done so no quicker than they would have endorsed 

 imperialism or Mormonism or spiritualism or vegetarianism. 



After this election, and during Kearney's absence in the East last 

 winter, began a new movement which, however, did not emanate from 

 the Workingmen's party proper, and was led by new men the meeting 

 and marching of the unemployed, demanding of large employers the 

 discharge of the Chinese. The alarm this excited, until the advance of 

 the season and the consequent demand for laborers in the interior had 

 lessened temporarily Jhe number of unemployed, led to the reorganiza- 

 tion of a Committee of Safety, which enrolled a good many names and 

 spent some money in paying the militia to guard their arsenals,* but 



* A job which the jovial sons of Mars rather liked, as it gave them three dollars per 

 night for privates and five dollars for officers, and the necessity for which of course they 

 did not belittle. In fact, in some of the night watches such expedients for continuing 

 the excitement as getting on the outside and chucking bricks through the windows were 

 discussed, if not put into practice. 



