and industrious in his personal
life, and possessed a clear eye, a penetrating voice, the vocabulary of
one versed in the crude socialistic pamphlets of his day, and, in spite
of certain domineering habits bred in the sailor, the winning graces of
his nationality.

Kearney appeared at meetings on the vacant lots known as the "sand
lots," in front of the City Hall of San Francisco, and advised the
discontented ones to "wrest the government from the hands of the rich
and place it in those of the people." On September 12, 1877, he rallied
a group of unemployed around him and organized the Workingman's Trade
and Labor Union of San Francisco. On the 5th of October, at a great
public meeting, the Workingman's party of California was formed and
Kearney was elected president. The platform adopted by the party
proposed to place the government in the hands of the people, to get rid
of the Chinese, to destroy the money power, to "provide decently for the
poor and unfortunate, the weak and the helpless," and "to elect none but
competent workingmen and their friends to any office whatever.... When
we have 10,000 members we shall have the sympathy and support of 20,000
other workingmen. This party," concluded the pronouncement, "will
exhaust all peaceable means of attaining its ends, but it will not be
denied justice, when it has the power to enforce it. It will encourage
no riot or outrage, but it will not volunteer to repress or put down or
arrest or prosecute the hungry and impatient, who manifest their hatred
of the Chinamen by a crusade against 'John,' or those who employ
him. Let those who raise the storm by their selfishness, suppress it
themselves. If they dare raise the devil, let them meet him face to
face. We will not help them." In advocating these views, Kearney held
meeting after meeting each rhetorically more violent than the last,
until on the 3d of November he was arrested. This martyrdom in the cause
of labor increased his power, and when he was released he was drawn by
his followers in triumph through the streets on one of his own drays.
His language became more and more extreme. He bludgeoned the "thieving
politicians" and the "bloodsucking capitalists," and he advocated
"judicious hanging" and "discretionary shooting." The City Council
passed an ordinance intended to gag him; the legislature enacted an
extremely harsh riot act; a body of volunteers patrolled the streets
of the city; a committee of safety was orga