What Could We Hope For?
By Editor
Mayor Phelan of San Francisco we are sure would not claim perfection, but so far as we can see he has tried to do his duty, and preserve order in the city. If he has erred in appointing more policemen than are necessary, as the strike element claims, surely no law-abiding man need be troubled. Yet the mayor’s course has stirred up as manifest a spirit of anarchy as was ever witnessed outside of violence. The evening of September 28 there was held a meeting of the “Ancient Order of Hibernians” in Metropolitan Hall to welcome a noted Irish priest and lecturer. This meeting was thrown open to the public. Archbishop Riordan was to have presided, but for some reason could not, and asked Mayor Phelan to take his place. But according to our paper, when the mayor attempted to open the meeting he was hissed, jeered, hooted, laughed at, called opprobrious names, till he was forced to desist. The great mass who thus showed their disrespect for the representative of law and order have been under the direct instruction for some time of a Catholic priest whom they cheered again and again. We wonder what this priest thinks of the spectacle afforded by his pupils in their treatment not only of the chief magistrate of their city, but of one who was acting in the place of this priest’s superior by that superior’s own appointment? Surely it augurs not well for the government of the future in the hands of such men. What must the writers in those dailies think who see this fruitage of their teaching? Sometime they may be in a position where the doing of their duty does not please the fickle mob. Will they then be prepared to take the consequence of their teaching now? Would they be pleased with such manifestation of lawlessness against themselves? Surely, as Christ predicted, “Lawlessness abounds.” But the good Christian—Hibernian, American, or Chinese—will have no sympathy with it. He may think rulers wrong, and warn them; but he will ever uphold proper authority, and show respect for its representatives. But what has America to hope for in the future if such a class is to rule who so manifested themselves in Metropolitan Hall, San Francisco, September 28?