San Francisco Committee of Vigilance of 1856 -- History; Vigilance committees -- California -- San Francisco
it was "all right." With this he passed into the hall. The guard at
the head of the stairs duly let me pass. At the middle of the stairs Dr.
Rabe, who so well knew me, and must have heard Dows' order, demanded the
pass-word, and refused to allow me to proceed. I said, "Why, Doctor, I
don't know the pass-word, and you heard Jim. Dows' order to let me pass
out." The guard at the head of the stairs cried out to him, "it was all
right," and I was then allowed to pass down. But at the foot of the
stairs the guard made similar demand, and again the word had to be
shouted from above, that I was to be allowed to pass out. One of the
guards then took my arm, escorted me through the file of outside guards,
into the street, and I was, finally, "all right." But I felt curious in
regard to Broderick and McKibben, The next day Dows told me we had all
been wanted as witnesses on behalf of one of the prisoners in the
custody of the Committee, but that he had got me excused. From Broderick
I subsequently learned that he had given his testimony and had then come
away. Also had McKibbon.
Rumors had been circulated that Broderick was to be arrested by the
Committee. Whether true or false, I never learned, At all events he soon
left San Francisco and made a tour of the mountain counties, to promote
his canvass for the Senatorship, which he achieved the following year.
His devoted friends were all violently opposed to the Committee, and any
harm to him, by that body, would have been the occasion of very serious
trouble.
Colonel E. D. Baker had defended Charles Cora, at his trial, as I have
related. He was positive and unreserved in his denunciation of the
Committee. Whether he was ever threatened with arrest I do not know; but
he likewise left the city and went into the interior Northern Counties
and there practiced his profession until September, when he entered into
the Presidential campaign as chief orator of the Republican party, for
Fremont, and in November returned to his practice in San Francisco.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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