Plague Watch

PlagueMaster here, returning here to PlagueWatch with information that is of utmost importance. After the PlagueCast, Rupert Blue started to take control, and the plague has been fought to a stalemate. For once, the main events in San Francisco have been outside of our control: it was the labor riots that hurt us most, struggles which saw a change at City Hall and an impending change in the capital.

Now, this was out ultimate chance: I said in the PlagueCast that McKinley’s death may usher in a new era, but the change in these two offices should be a chance for new people who rise on the merits of their own. Instead, one has made things even worse for the city, and the other has chosen to ride out their final days wreaking havoc on the people inside of it.

In the first case, Mayor Schmitz is, well, a Schmutz. Here we have someone who may be a fresh ear, and yet he makes the first move by attempting to install a new and corrupt Board of Health. His attempts to claim that plague does not exist are a relic, the ugly views of the early merchants and companies who led the charge for the past two years. This kind of thinking is getting us nowhere, and the new Mayor needs to get his act in gear. I was dismayed that the plague wasn’t an election issue to begin with, but now the new Mayor is ignoring the facts in favour of getting into bed with business. We here at PlagueWatch have no such aspirations, let me assure you.

On the other side of the coin, Governor Gage lies impotent after bungling the labor situation, but his impotence in other areas has no deeper meaning beyond his own second-rate character. Everything has been for show, from his pathetic attempts at cleaning up Chinatown (Far inferior to Blue’s efforts) to what Mark White, currently in charge of things in Rupert Blue’s absence, believes is the deliberate hiding of the plague, a problem alluded to earlier. That this is continuing only shows his inability to deal with this scenario in a realistic fashion.

So, here we are at a crucial point where plague is re-emerging a year and a half after it first arrived, and we have two figures holding us back. Let’s hope that something shakes them up: Wyman has made a move for the Marine Hospital Service to emphasize public health, and this might be the jolt we all need.