I came across a great story about an
enterprising San Francisco merchant who scattered $20 worth of gold
dust on the cobblestones of a public street, and was sweeping it up
and panning it out in a horse trough just as a boatload of eager new
49ers arrived from “The States”. To them it seemed the streets
of San Francisco really were paved with gold. The shop keeper even
helpfully directed the newcomers to a nearby store where they could
begin getting rich by obtaining their own twenty cent prospecting
pan - for a mere $15.00 each. The new arrivals bought every pan in
the store, and the merchant got rich. It's a myth of course, but not
by much. The Frisco store was owned by Sam Brannan (above). And in nine short
weeks in 1848 this alcoholic womanizer sold enough mining pans and
picks and shovels out of his Frisco and Sacramento stores to profit
the modern equivalent of $9 million. And he used that fortune, and
four lengths of rope, to grab as much power as quickly as he could..
Samuel Brannan got his grub stake as
the first President of the Mormon mission to California, when he
traveled to Sacramento to collect tithes from the 100 Mormon workmen,
contracted to build Mr. Sutter's mill (above) on the American River. His
timing was fortunate because he saw the gold nuggets the Mormons had
just discovered. Now, Sam should have turned that tithe money over
to the Church of Latter Day Saints, which had dispatched him to
California in 1846. But in 1847 he had crossed the high Sierras, and
met with the church's new leader, Brigham Young. Sam urged Young to
continue on to paradise in California, but the Mormon Moses was
inspired instead to remain in the Utah wilderness. Returning alone
to California, this disillusioned saint saw the “first world-class
gold rush” as his own message from God. He became a prophet of
capitalism. And when the church asked for the tithes he had
collected, Sam told them, “When Brigham Young shows me a purchase order signed by God, I'll show him the money.” Or so the
story goes.
As one of Frisco's first millionaires,
Sam was a natural for the town council. But it was not an easy job.
In the first 24 months after Sutter's mill, San Francisco went from
1,000 to 25,000 residents. Then, in 1850, the new California
legislature slapped on a $20 monthly “foreign miners tax”, which
drove most non-American prospectors out of the gold fields. Frisco
soaked them up. Twenty percent of the town were now Chinese, and
another twenty percent spoke Spanish, and a surprisingly large
percentage were Australians, transported from England, usually for
the crime of being poor. Men outnumbered women in Frisco by a hundred
to one, and 2/3rds of those few women were prostitutes. Half the
population was sleeping in tents, the other half in ramshackle
shanties or aboard the hundreds of ships, abandoned by their gold
hungry crews, and left floating in the bay. And to make matters
worse, the darn place kept burning down.
On Christmas eve 1849 a fire broke out
that overwhelmed the towns 90 volunteer firefighters and devoured
fifty buildings. During the inferno, capitalist were selling a bucket
of water for a dollar each. On May 4, 1850, 300 houses and three
lives were destroyed by another fire. This time entrepreneurs
insisted on contracts paying $3 an hour to help the firemen. And when
city council hesitated to pay their bills, some frustrated
contractors threatened to start their own fires. At about eight on the
morning of June 14th, it happened again, consuming another
300 buildings. And on September 17th, the fourth fire in
nine months swept up Jackson Street and burned out 125 buildings and
eight city blocks. Then on May 4, 1851, a heavy wind drove yet
another inferno that devoured yet another18 city blocks, centered
around the neighborhood called “The Barbary Coast”, or “Sydney
Cove” - for the large percentage of Australians living there.
The entire city was made of wood and
canvas, and the only source of heat and light were thousands of open
flames, and the only potable fluid safe to drink was alcohol laced,
so in retrospect conflagrations were inevitable. But rumors, and
newspapers such as the California Star, owned by Sam Brannan,
insisted that Frisco's 57 police officers and overworked judges were
too corrupt to catch and punish the extortion- arsonists nicknamed
“The Lightkeeper”.
At least a suspect was caught in the
May 1851 fire, an Australian named Benjamin Lewis. He was even
rumored to be a member of the gang, “The Sydney Ducks”. His trial
on Tuesday, June 3, 1851 was interrupted by shouts of “Lynch the
villian”. Court officials hoped Sam Brannan could calm the angry
crowd, but instead he suggested that Lewis be handed over to
“volunteer policemen” for trial and punishment. The crowd agreed,
but the real cops managed to slip the defendant safely out of the court
house. Within a few days, the evidence against Lewis collapsed, and
all charges were dropped. But this only outraged the citizens of San
Francisco even more. On Monday, June 9, 1851, a meeting was called at
the California Engine Company by fireman George Oakes and merchant
James Neall to organize a public response. They asked yet another
volunteer fireman to head a vigilante committee – Samuel Brannan,
of course.
The very next day a drunken John
Jenkins (alleged to be another Sydney Duck) boldly strode into a
shipping office on the Long Wharf, grabbed a small safe with $50 in
gold coins inside, and walked out. As pursuers drew close he tossed
the safe into the bay, then allowed himself to be taken into custody.
Jenkins was certain his fellow Ducks would rescue him. But he had not
been taken by police. Instead he was lead to the headquarters of the
Vigilante Committee, a warehouse owned by Sam Brannan, directly
behind the offices of his “California Star” In less than an hour
a rump court was convened, and two hours later Jenkins was
convicted. At two in the morning, Wednesday June 12th ,
John Jenkins was jerked aloft from a gallows leaning against the Old
Mexican customs house on Portsmouth Square, right in front of
Brannan's newspaper. The Australian hung there for two hours.
The next day, Thursday the 13th,
the goals of the Committee were published in the pages of Brannan's "Star" and other papers. “The citizens of San Francisco,” it
announced, “do bind ourselves, each unto the other...determined
that no thief, burglar, incendiary or assassin, shall escape
punishment, either by the quibbles of the law, the insecurity of
prisons, the carelessness or corruption of the police, or a laxity of
those who pretend to administer justice.” It had been written by
Sam Brannan. Within days 700 citizens had joined the vigilante
committee.
Over the summer Brannan's vigilantes'
were busy, dragging people into their headquarters, interrogating them, and doling out punishments as deemed
necessary. One man was whipped in Portsmouth Square, 14 were
forcefully deported back to Australia, another 14 were ordered to
leave California, 15 more were handed over to the real police, and 41
were allowed to leave, with a warning. It is not known how many other
Australians were refused entry at the port, or the number who “self
deported” out of fear. Then on July 11th, the committee
detained and hanged accused murderer “English” Jim Stuart from
the yard arm of a ship docked at the end of the Market Street wharf (below)
It should be pointed out, that the
committee also organized nightly fire patrols, and offered a $5,000
reward for any information concerning the identify of “The
Lightkeeper”. Fires diminished, in number and severity, but this success must
have at least partly been due to the use of brick and mortar in
new construction. But the $5,000 reward was never claimed, although
at last, two Australians, Samuel Whittaker and Robert McKenzie were
arrested and convicted in the Vigilante court of arson as well as
burglary and robbery Their execution was set for August 21st.
The day before, the Governor, John
MacDougal, issued a public proclamation, denouncing the “despotic
control of a self-constituted association unknown to and acting in
defiance of the laws in the place of the regularly organized
government of the country.” He went further, and obtained a writ of
habeas corpus (“prodcuce the body”) from a state Supreme Court Justice,
and then served it himself on the sheriff, Jack Hays. That night the
Governor, the mayor and the sheriff , along with three deputies,
marched into the committee's headquarters and demanded Whittaker and
McKenzie be handed over. The sleepy guards acquiesced, and by 3 AM the
two Australians were heavily guarded in the city jail.
It was a clear and direct challenge to
Brennan. But Sam waited until Sunday, the 24th, until he
acted. That morning Sheriff Hays was lured out of town by an invitation to a bull
fight. And at about 2 PM, as the prisoners were being allowed out of
their cells to receive mass, 36 heavily armed vigilantes rushed the
jail, grabbed McKenzie and Whittaker, and marched them back to
Committee headquarters. In 17 minutes the men had been tried and
convicted again, and hanged from the beams used for loading goods into a wharehouse's second floor windows. Sam Brannan even addressed the crowd of 5,000 who come to cheer and to stare in shock at his
audacity.
But Sam Brannan (above) had finally gone too
far. The Democratic Governor had an ally, in the local United States
Military Commander, William Tecumseh Sherman, who noted in his
autobiography decades later, “As (the Committee) controlled the
press, they wrote their own history, and the world generally gives
them the credit of having purged San Francisco of rowdies and roughs;
but.... the same set of..rowdies that had infested the City Hall were
found in the employment of the "Vigilantes”.”
How the message was delivered is not
known, but clearly a message was delivered. Quietly, the Committee did not
meet again for five years, and never again under the leadership of
Sam Brannan. That September, the sheriff was reelected. And Sam
sailed for Hawaii, where he bought more land. He did not return to
San Francisco for the better part of a year. In 1853 he was elected
to the state Senate. But by then his church had excommunicated,
or disfellowshipped, him, because of his vigilantism. Any dreams he
had harbored about higher office would always break on the same rock.
Sam continued to build his fortune
until until 1872, when his wife Anna could take his infidelities no
more, So numerous were Sam's marital transgressions that the judge in
their divorce awarded Anna half of all of Sam's wealth, in cash.
Selling his properties left him almost bankrupt. Sam bought a small
ranch outside of San Diego, remarried and made enough speculating in
Mexican lands to pay his debts. But Sam left his new wife with nothing when he died in 1889.
The Democratic machine Sam had put in
place continued even in his absence, in part by another outburst of
vigilantism in 1856. More miscreants and arsonists and murderers were
hanged, and more were chased out of town, but this time they were
usually Chinese. But the Barbary Coast remained the same sinful place, and 'Frisco politics remained dirty. In the meantime, about 14 billion in early 21st
century dollars were dug out of the California gold fields, and
almost all of it had passed through San Francisco. In retrospect it
seems that by building his political power on fear, Sam Brannan had
tried to grab too much too fast. And he didn't get to keep any of
it.
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Just at dawn the Canadian troops had fought their way into the Belgium town of Mons, where the British army had begun the war four long bloody years before. Arthur had been ordered to take four men and advance to the canal and see what the Huns on the other side were up to.
As they took their first steps in the open the patrol spotted a German machine gun crew setting up in the attic of a house on the far shore. Experienced soldiers, they knew they had to cross the open ground before the deadly weapon could begin shooting. They dashed the hundred yards across the bridge, their hobnail boots pounding on the boards.
Arthur realized the patrol had now accomplished its goal. The Germans had been forced to reveal their intention not to defend the canal. And now the patrol had to get back with that word. George Price led the way, out the door, and Arthur followed. As they stepped into the street the machine guns suddenly stopped. In that second of silence George turned as if to say something to Arthur, and a single shot rang out. George fell forward, into Arthur’s arms. A growing crimson red stain quickly spread across George’s chest.
It is a great story, and partly true. George Lawrence Price, serial number 256265, had been born in Newfoundland and enlisted in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, a town of just 14,000 in 1918. He was "conscripted", meaning he was a draftee, and so was a perfect example of the sacrifices demanded by this war. He was officially listed as being killed by a sniper’s bullet at 10:57 A.M., just three minutes before the cease fire was to take effect.
However, there is also the story of German Lieutenant H.G. Toma, who, after the cease fire, had disarmed his own men and was leading them across the lines when they were gunned down by American machine gunners who had not yet gotten the order to cease fire. Lt. Toma was so despondent and incensed at the senseless slaughter of his men that he shot himself. His suicide would seem to have been a poignant comment on the entire war. Toma’s death was also said to be the inspiration for the final scene for the novel “All Quiet on the Western Front”.
From the cynics view the very idea of a “Last Man” killed in a war that killed 10 million soldiers (and another 10 million civilians) may seem an exercise in futility. In fact, the last day of this war, which lasted just 11 hours, saw almost 11,000 dead, wounded and missing; more casualties than in the 24 hours of D-Day, in World War Two. Worse, as an historian has noted, “The men storming the Normandy beaches on June 6, 1944, were risking their lives to win a war. The men who fell on November 11, 1918, lost their lives in a war that the Allies had already won. Had Marshal Foch (the Allied Supreme Commander) heeded the appeal…to stop hostilities while the talks went on, some sixty-six hundred lives would likely have been saved… So,...the men who died for nothing when they might have known long life, ‘would all be forgotten.”
Well, not entirely. We all die eventually, and we are all eventually forgotten, as our bones and reputations turn to dust. But the death of twenty million should mean something greater than the sum of their individual petty lives. And in that regard those millions who died in the “…war to end all wars”, require our respect, a memory, an image to keep their memory alive. And in that regard the face of George Lawrence Price (above) , staring out from the now distant past, does better many. His is the face of confident innocence: a confident time, familiar and distant, innocent, and yet no more innocent than your life today; George Lawrence Price was, officially, the last man killed in The Great War of 1914-1918. God rest his soul.
