p. 4 | Martial Law

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · May 30, 1906

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 32, No. 21.

Martial Law

Martial Law, with all its foolish, overweening officialism, manifest especially among some of the soldiers, to whom human life was of no worth, was a decided blessing. Humanly speaking, most of those killed deserved to be. They were ghouls, preying on the dead and mutilating corpses in order to get jewelry. But there were other instances when men were shot down in the discharge of their duty, because they did not immediately obey some weak-minded boy in uniform. In many cases that Wednesday of April was a horrible carnival of death. Hundreds flocked to the saloons and drunk themselves mad or foolish or besotted, unable to do many things they might have done in the saving of property and fighting of fire. One gentleman who was through it all, writes me that if it had not been for the open saloons April 18, the fire would have been much sooner checked. When Martial Law asserted itself, the whisky was poured into the gutter, and never was seen such fire-fighting as sober San Francisco did. After this when schools and churches became hospitals and homes for the people, the saloons did nothing. When their hellish work was stayed, their activity ceased. Would God that San Francisco, and every other city, might learn the lesson and blot the foul fiend—the saloon—forever from their borders.