ry
order. What authority had any official to dispossess honest people from
their homes in times of peace? The right to hold their property
unmolested was a prerogative vested in the humblest American and who was
the governor to abrogate the Constitution, the Declaration of
Independence, and manifold decisions of the Supreme Court? In embittered
fury Henry Miller resigned from the Investigating Committee, now defunct
anyway, its voluminous and inconclusive report buried in the state
archives. Injunctions issued from local courts like ashes from a
stirring volcano, but the militia were impervious and hustled the
freeholders from their homes with callous disregard for the sacred dues
of property.

When the reason behind this evacuation order leaked out a still greater
lamentation was evoked, for the National Guard was planning nothing less
than a saturation incendiary bombing of the entire area. The bludgeon
which reduced the cities of Europe to mere shells must surely destroy
this new invader. Even the stoutest defenders of property conceded this
must be so--but what was the point of annihilating the enemy if their
holdings were to be sacrificed in the process? No, no, let the governor
take whatever means he pleased to dispatch the weed so long as the
method involved left them homes to enjoy when things were--as they
inevitably must be--restored to normal. So frantic were their efforts
that the Supreme Court actually forced the governor to postpone his
proposed bombing, though it did not discontinue the evacuation.

There were few indeed who understood how the weed would digest the very
wood, bricks or stucco and who packed up and moved out ahead of the
troops. American flags and shotguns recalled the heroic days of the
frontier, and defiance of the governor's edict was the rule instead of
the exception. Fierce old ladies dared the militiamen to lay a finger on
them or their possessions and apoplectic gentlemen, eyes as glazed as
those of the huntingtrophies on their walls, sputtered refusals to stir,
no, not for all the brutal force in the world. No one was seriously hurt
in this rebellion, the commonest wound being long scratches on the
cheeks of the guardsmen, inflicted by feminine nails, as with various
degrees of resistance the inhabitants were carried or shooed from their
dwellings.

While the wrangling over its destruction went on, the grass continued
its progress. Out through Cahuenga Pass it flowed, toward fer