GOVERNOR LUTHER R. BRADLEY.

 

            IT IS with a feeling of deep sorrow that I recall the memory of Governor Bradley, for he was long my friend ; but there came a time when it was my duty to inflict upon him perhaps the greatest disappointment of his life.

            He was an early comer to California, one of the Argonauts, I believe. He settled near Stockton in that state. He was from Virginia, unlettered, spoke in the dialect of the poor whites and negroes of that state, was intensely pro-southern, and went to Stockton just when Judge Terry, Dr. Ainsley and the full band of fire-eaters centered there and controlled things politically, sometimes in a most partisan and arrogant manner. Governor Bradley was in full sympathy with them. He was not more than five feet seven or eight inches in height, but stockily built, and must have weighed 200 pounds. I never knew him until he reached Nevada. Ever after that he wore very long, full whiskers. It was said that when the news of the election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency was confirmed, he declared that he would never have his hair cut nor beard shaved until the people got some sense and elected a Democrat President. The truth of this I cannot affirm, but think it very liable to be true. He came to Nevada, I think, in 1860, driving over a small band of cattle. He located near where Austin now is.

            At that time Nevada was covered with bunch grass, which is most nutritious. Cattle pastured upon it in the autumn, when the seed ripens, would in three months, from half skeletons take on full flesh, and the meat be equal to or better than the best stall fed beef, for the seed was really grain and the very finest quality for beef. There was a series of mild winters after 1860; the governor's herds swiftly increased and he became a real cattle king. In the early seventies, I asked him once if he ever made any provisions for protecting and feeding his cattle in the winter, and reminded him of the legend that buffalo were plenty in the Great Basin until the fierce

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winter of 1838, which killed them all. He replied that he only brought a small band of cattle to Nevada and just let them rustle, and he had done reasonably well. He added : 'There is a good deal in educating a critter He is like a man. If he knows his living depends on his rustling, he will rustle." In 1870 the Democrats, looking around for a candidate for governor, determined to nominate Bradley.

            The Comstock had been in borasco for several years until 1869. Mr. Sharon had held things together, and made the great discoveries in the Belcher and Crown Point possible. Not one man in a thousand comprehended the work he had performed, but he was called king. Sutro was filling the air of the whole state with his complainings against Sharon and the bank ring, and when the Republicans nominated F. A. Tritte, a broker in Virginia City and friend of Mr. Sharon, though he was one of the most splendid men that ever lived in Nevada, the Democrats with "Old Broadhorns," as they called him, and a cry for an honest government, easily elected their candidate.

            He had not the first qualification for the place ; no clear knowledge of the duties of the office, nor of the needs of the state, but he was a kindly old man and had a streak of native strategy about him which was in truth the most catching kind of politics. A couple of samples of this will make it clear.

            Crossing the street in Carson one day, a man in a lumber wagon, with his wife and child with him, drove past, and, seeing the Governor, stopped his team, and accosted him with, "Excuse me, Governor, but me and my wife wanted to speak to you and tell you that we and all the neighbors up in Douglas county were glad that you were elected, and to wish you well."

            The Governor stepped up to the wagon, shook hands with both, told them he had been hoping that he and his neighbors would come to Carson, that he wanted to see them all, and all the time was patting the child's head. They drove away with radiant faces, when the Governor turned to a friend and asked, "Who be they?"

            The friend replied, "Why, that is - -; they live in Douglas county.

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            "And whar be Douglas county?" asked his excellency.

            On another occasion, as the Governor went out from his executive chambers one morning, he noticed that the janitor was removing the desks from the assembly chamber. Going to him, the Governor asked: ''What's yer doin', Jake?' The janitor explained that the Knights of Pythias from all over the state had been in convention in Carson for two days, that they were going to have a ball in the assembly hall that night and he was preparing the room for them.

            "Knights of Pythias," said the Governor, "who be they?' : The janitor replied: "Why, Governor, it is an order like the Masons or Odd Fellows; have you not noticed them here for a couple of days wearing sashes and swords?"

            "O them fellows," said the Governor: "why they'll get drunk and muss everything up. I wouldn't let 'em have the hall, Jake."

            At that moment one of the Knights came in, the scabbard of his sword clanking on the marble floor at every step.

            The Governor turned to him, right in the presence of the janitor and said cheerily : 'Well, my son, are you going to have a good time tonight?'

            'I hope so, Governor," was the reply.

            Then the Governor, with a smile, said: 'I heeard you was going to have a party and I war so anxious that everything would be pleasant for you. I war out superintending Jake's work myself."

            Could anyone beat that? He was re-elected governor in 1874. By 1876 the bonanza was in full blast and the Comstock was soaring as never before.

            When the Legislature met in January, 1877, the Governor, listening to some not very level-headed advisers, recommended in his message a mighty tax on bullion, and further, that all incorporations should be taxed for the full amount of shares in their capital stock at par.

            That meant that if the owners of a prospect incorporated with say 150,000 shares of the value of one dollar per share, in hope of selling a few shares, say at 10 cents per share in order to help develop the prospect, the incorporation should be

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assessed for the full $150,000 named in their incorporation papers.

            When the time for nominations drew near in 1878, I begged the Democrats, through the Enterprise, not to try to run the governor for a third term ; explaining that the Republican press of the state had always been most considerate of the governor because of his age and kindly ways, but it would be necessary to defeat him if he was a candidate again, and that one result would be to sunder old ties of friendship which it would be sweet to keep.

            The Democrats met in state convention two days later and nominated the old man by acclamation.

            Of course the fight was on at once. I do not think there was ever any other such political fight on this coast. It did not relax, but rather grew hotter and hotter every day for two months, and the old man went down under the storm.

            But he got even in a little way. Four years before, I had called upon a friend in Sacramento. In a paddock near his house he had a mare and a baby colt perhaps three months old. It seemed a wonderful colt, and I asked the friend what he would take to keep him and break him and send him to me when the colt was four years old. He named a price and I paid him. Just before election, when the campaign was at its height, the friend sent me the colt. He was a wonder, one of, the most beautiful horses ever seen in the west. The stable boys were hitching him to a sulky one day when Governor Bradley passed. He looked into the barn, saw the horse, entered and walked around him several times exclaiming, "What a beauty! What a beauty!" naming his regal points in a kind of ecstasy. Finally he asked who owned the animal.

            When told, he said : "That thar feller in the Enterprise?'

            When answered yes, he turned abruptly, and saying : "That there colt looks ter have a heap more sense than his owner," left the barn.

            The following winter was a most severe one, and 20.000 head of the governor's cattle perished.

            His disappointments, his financial losses and his great age were too much for him, and a few months later he died.

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            He died thinking I was his enemy and never knew that there never was a moment when personally I would not have gladly gone out of my way to serve him in any manner possible, and he never could understand why the best interests of Nevada made it necessary to defeat his third election.

            If any reader thinks the personal pronoun is too much in evidence in this, I hope he will believe that it is but to make clear to the many friends of the Governor who are still alive that sometimes an honest newspaper has to present things in such a light as makes everyone connected with it wish that he could avoid the duty.

            Governor Bradley was a kindly, generous man in life. He was, too, shrewd and cunning in many ways, a typical frontiersman, and the hope of all who knew him is that in the beyond in the clearer light, he will see the hearts of men as they really are, and be able to understand all that was hidden from his darkened eyes here.