Far Western Lawgivers And Preachers

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Part three of the American Far West seven mid nineteenth
century Views from Abroad by anonymous This LibriVox recording is
in the public domain Part three Far Western lawgivers and Preachers.
Of course, there must be a legislature as soon as

(00:20):
a rude territory is organized, and somebody must run for it,
and somebody be elected in all the divisions to sit
in the local parliament, and all who are so chosen
have the title of honorable. Indeed, it seems as if
in these parts of the world every government official except
the policeman, has this handle to his name. It does

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not always follow that these honorables are the worthiest men
to be had, any more than it always follows that
honorable members of the British Parliament comprise the flower of
our British intellect. But one thing is certain, in the
West at least, and probably over the whole of America,
that the legislature is almost sure to contain the worthiest

(01:04):
members of society. For to speak or make a few
remarks on something is absolutely indispensable to a Western man.
In the wilder parts of the settlements, members of legislature
have often been elected not so much for their talents
as for being good hands at poker or great at

(01:24):
a spree, and one of these, the honorable Gentleman from Mariposa,
on getting up to speak in the California Legislature and
essaying several times without much effect, was greeted with shouts
of get out, Oh, get out. They mistook their man, however,
for as one of his supporters remarked before his election,

(01:45):
much on the speak, but just get him mad once
and he'll give em fits. Look ye here, gentlemen, he remarked,
caking a derringer pistol ima, holler, get out, get out,
as long as God will let you. But my speech
is already begun, and the next man who shall skid
out in the house will bring to his ears the
ominous clicking of small arms. What is it the gentleman wish?

(02:08):
And what would they have? Is my life so dear
or my peace so sweet that it must be purchased
at the expense of incapacitating a few on yie for
military service. No, siree, I know not what course others
would take. But as for me, I will finish my
speech or there'll be a dead senator found round these premises.
In about fifteen seconds by the clock he was allowed

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to finish at his leisure. The late doctor Henry, formerly
Surveyor General of Washington Territory, among the many genial stories
he used to tell, and which still keep his memory green,
had won at the expense of his territorial legislature. A
hotel keeper in one of the fashionable towns in the
Eastern States used to stand at the head of the

(02:53):
table and read out the Bill of fare in what
the elocution teachers called a clear articular voice, though there
was a printed cart on the table. This irritated his
aristocratic customers, until at last one said, say, cap, why
do you read out the bill of fare? Do you
think we can't read? Oh, gentlemen, was the reply. You

(03:15):
will excuse me, I hope it is solely the force
of habit I once kept a hotel in Washington Territory,
and most of the legislatur boarded with me, and I'm
blessed of hafem could read or write. It is a
matter of history that when the Convention met to form
a constitution for California, and on the usual preambo being

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read that all men should be judged by a jury
of their peers. An Oregonian who happened to be a
delicate moved, to the great amusement of the other members,
that the word peers should be struck out. This warn't
a monarchy. There warn't no peers in this here state.
Disgraceful scenes of drunkenness are sometimes seen in these legislatures,

(04:00):
but in this they do not stand alone. One of
the Californian members of the United States Senate is distinguished
as the sober Senator, such a virtue being rather uncommon
in the present congressmen from that state. Corruption in these
state legislatures prevails to a frightful extent, and is so
open that newspapers will even have the hardihood to give

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a list of the sums paid to each senator for
his vote. In the more refined states, official embezzlements are
styled pickings, but in the far West and Pacific states,
plain English suffices, and they are well known as stealings.
More than once prominent government officials have asked me, while

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in social intercourse how much salary I got for such
an office? I would tell them, while would be the
reply that it much for this country, but of course
you have got your little stealings. I was naturally rather
inclined to resent the insinuation of robbing my government or
employers of any sort until they would assure me that

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they meant no harm. It was the regular thing there,
everybody did it. Why, sir, do you think I can
support my family on fifteen hundred dollars a year in
green bags at sixty cents to the dollar, or that
I would come up to this one horse place after
having a practice as a lawyer in Frisco of ten
thousand dollars a year for that, I guess not. All

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members of these legislatures are paid and get also a
certain mileage or traveling expense from their homes to the
seat of government. This recompense, or per diem as they
call it, varies from about ten dollars to fifteen dollars
a day, and is generally paid in the Pacific States
in gold. The mileage is about twenty five cents a mile. Now,

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this to a congressman traveling from Washington Territory, Idaho, Oregon,
or California comes up to a very round sum, and
indeed is looked upon as their principal pay, always exclusive
of the little stealings formerly mentioned the local legislatures are
limited by the state constitution to a sitting of so

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many days, and it would be well if the British
colonial ones were under the same rule. For their unpaid
twaddle is endless, and of course their pay only extends
over that period. Sometimes they will finish their work in
a much less time than the law allows for their sitting,
but they have no notion of rising while their pay

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is going on. When not engaged in the ante rooms
of the Senate Hall in playing monte cutthroat, poker, Ankra
or seven up, they can pass the time in introducing
bogus or sham bills, generally a divorce for some of
their own number, or a rule to show why another
should not change his name. The wit and decency of

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which I am told are very much in the style
of an institution once presided over in London by Chief
Bans Aaron Nicholson. When Oregon was poor and humble, her
rough names for her rivers and towns were good enough
for them. But when she got rich, a bill was
gravely introduced to change these names. Rogue River was to

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be called Gold River, gold just then being found on
its banks, and so forth it would probably have passed
had not another supplemental bill been introduced, which provided that
jump Off Joe should be called Walk Along Joseph, that
Greecer's camp should be called the Halls of Montezuma, that

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Shirttail Bar should be styled Karaza Beach, and so on.
This fairly left the whole proposal out of court, though
indeed on the official map. An attempt was made to
keep up some of these elegant appellations and to indianize
the more outrageous of the names. In the way of
legislative joking. It is a well known fact that when

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a bill was introduced into the Georgia legislature to lay
attacks of ten dollars ahead upon all donkeys, a jocular
member proposed to amend it so as to include lawyers
and doctors. Which amendment was passed amid loud applause. Various
attempts have been made to repeal the clause, but in
vain and to this day at tacks of ten dollars

(08:18):
is levied upon all jackasses, lawyers, and doctors. In the
Far West, as elsewhere, there are legislators who are not
too much in earnest I recommend to some of our
present candidates for British suffrages. The following noble close to
a far Western election address, gentlemen, said the candidate, after

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having given his sentiments on the Constitution, the Monroe Doctrine,
and suchlike topics, gentlemen, and he put his hand on
the region of his heart. These are my sentiments, the sentiments, gentlemen,
of an honest man, I an honest politician. But gentlemen
and fellow citizen, if they don't suit you, they can

(09:00):
be altered. To appear a plain sort of a man
on these electioneering tours is quite as necessary as the
old world. Baby kissing and shaking hands with the washed
men provided by your agent are with us. I know
a Western senator who keeps what he calls his stumping suit,
had and gray, well worn but whole, shoes patched but

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brightly polished, a shirt spotlessly clean, but frayed at the
edges of the seams, and a hat which has seen
better days, but in its well brushed condition quite keeps
up the air its owner is striving to assume humble
but honest. After a campaign is over, the suit is
carefully put aside until another election in which its owner

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is interested. The worthy Senator, who is rather a dandy
than otherwise, has filled every office from governor to hogweave,
and considers that his suit of humble but honest won
him many a vote. Money wouldn't buy it, he told
me it ain't for sale, nohow. It is commonly supposed

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that General Fremont lost his elections out West by dividing
his hair down the middle. The Honorable Samuel M. Has
often assured me that on his first candidature for office
in Oregon Territory, certain of the baser sort voted again
him because of his putting on airs in respect of
wearing a white shirt, or, as they irreverently styled it,

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a boiled rag. I have put this state in the
far West before the church, for the church there is
of the future, although every place is not like Josephine County,
where I was told with a sort of depraved pride,
the ain't narry preacher a meetin' house in this here county,
cap'n in other places where the preacher gets a footing,

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it is sometimes easier to get a meet'n' house full
than to get wherewith to support the laborer who is
nowhere in the world more worthy of his high. A
preacher in a frontier settlement had been collecting money for
some church project. There were still some twenty dollars wanting,
and after vain efforts to make up the deficiency, he

(11:12):
plainly intimated, as he locked the church door one day
after service, that he intended to have that said twenty
dollars before any of them left the house. At the
same time, he set the example by tossing five dollars
on the table. Another put down a dollar, another a
quarter of a dollar, a fourth half a dollar, and

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so on. The parson read out every now and then
the state of the funds, bars seven and a half,
my friends, bars nine and a quarter, ten and six bits,
or all that are in the half friends and Christian brethren.
Slowly it mounted up twelve and a half, fourteen, fifteen,

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sixteen and three bits, and so on, until it stuck
at nineteen dollars and a half. It only wants fifty
cent tents friends, to make up the amount. Will nobody
make it up? Everybody has subscribed, and not a cent
more was forthcoming. Silence reigned, and how long it might
have lasted, it was difficult to say, had not a

(12:13):
half dollar been tossed through the open window, and a
rough explanatory voice shouted, here, parson, here's your money. Let out,
my gal. I'm about tired o waitin' honor. The Long
tom Creek region in Oregon is settled by a very
rough lot of people, mostly from Missouri. They are even
an oregon a proverb for the uncouth character of their manners,

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and it was thought quite a missionary enterprise when a
devoted young clergyman from the States came and settled among them.
Church was a novelty with them. It reminded them of
old times in the States. They built a little church
in the middle of a broad prairie, and for a
time it was crowded every Sunday. The backwoodsmen and their
families used to come to church in wagons and on horseback.

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The men had on frames inched buckskin breeches and moccasins
of Indian manufacture, and the head covered with coonskin caps,
with the tail hanging in the form of a tassel behind.
They would tie their horses up to the long hitchin
post in front of the church, and always brought their
rifles to church with them handy for any varmints which

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might cross their path, going and coming. It so happened
one warm Sunday that the church door was opened, and
a backwoodsman who happened to be near it, was gazing
vacantly out on the prairie in front. Suddenly he spied
a deer close by, quietly grazing. Here was a chance.

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Slowly he took his rifle from the corner of his
pew and crept out. His action was observed, and one
after another followed until nobody but a lame old man
was left. By this time, the deer was ambling over
the prairie, and the whole congregation of men yelling and
galloping in pursuit. Preaching was out of the question, for

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even the women and children were as eager as the
men watching the chase. Half way over the prairie, the
old man and the preachers stood alone together at the
door of the church. The poor clergyman, in despair for
the souls of his people, and thinking that he would
have a sympathizer in the old man, who alone had
not joined in the chase, sighingly said, lost, lost devil,

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a bit of it, sir devil, A bit of it.
They'll catch it by jingo. They've plugged it unknowed they would.
The young minister received a haunch and brought the services
to a close. But he was out of his element
and soon went east again, where he is in the
habit of remarking with unnecessary acrimony that the Oregonians are
a very careless people in heavenly matters. In the same

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part of the country, at a place called caudal Bridge,
I saw a deacon preach. His sermon was not very
remarkable for vigor, but I can vouch for it that
his squirting of tobacco juice over the pulpit room was
most forcible. I had noticed that for some seats next
the reading desk, the pews were unoccupied, though other parts

(15:08):
of the church were crowded. After what I witnessed, I
had no difficulty in accounting for the indisposition to sit
under him too. Immediately, if the parson is sometimes rough,
so are the parishioners. At church in a little backwood settlement,
most of the congregation were asleep. Suddenly a half tipsy
fellow made an apple bump on the bald head of

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one of the sleepers. The preacher stopped and gave the
offender an interrogative. Stare, bile ahead, parson, bile ahead, I'll
keep him awake, was the ready explanation. The following incident
has I think been told before, but still it is
so characteristic that it is worth repeating. In California, a

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miner had died in a mountain digging, and being much respected,
his acquaintances resolved to give him a square funeral. Instead
of putting the bars in the usual way in any
roughly made hole and saying by way of service for
the dead, Dargo's another bully boy under they sought the
services of a miner who bore the reputation of having,

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at one time of his career been a powerful preacher
in the States and then far Western fashion. All knelt
around the grave while the extemporized parson delivered a prodigiously
long prayer. The miners, tired of this unaccustomed opiate to
while away the time, began fingering the earth digger fashion

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about the grave. Gradually, looks were exchanged, whispering increased, until
it became loud enough to attract the attention of their parson.
He opened his eyes and stared at the whispering miners,
What is it boys? Then, as suddenly his eyes lighted
on sparkling scales of gold, he shouted gold by Jingo

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and the richest kind of diggings. The congregations dismissed instantly,
every man began to prospect the new digging, our clerical
friend not being the least active of the number. The
body had to be removed and buried elsewhere, but the
memory of the incident yet lives in the name of
the locality, for dead Man's Gulch became one of the

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richest localities in California. End of Part three