and good people who thought they were good, to tell their stories. For some years I devoted much time and energy to this work. Their stories took on the character of confessions and were published as serials in the Bulletin. In this confessional have stood Abraham Ruef, political boss; Donald Lowrie, exprisoner; Jack Black, ex-prisoner; A Baptist Clergyman; Alice Smith, a prostitute; A Sure-Thing Gambler; A Bunko Man; A Prominent Physician, and Martin Kelly, political boss. These confessions were all intended to help other people to see themselves and to recognize themselves, but there were always some who thought I inspired these confessions, and wondered why I, too, did not confess. I received many letters asking me why I didn't tell my story as fully and frankly as I urged others to do. I invariably replied that I wanted to, but that I couldn't. But now that I am free to write it, I hope that my readers will try to find themselves in my story and recognize that it is really the story of all of us. I THE BEGINNING BECAME managing editor of the Bulletin in January, 1895. Before that time I had been a reporter on various San Francisco newspapers, and had acquired a local reputation as a young man with a "nose for news." In addition to this news instinct, I had a great deal of enthusiasm for my work, a persistent desire to run down every story until I had exhausted every possible angle of it. As an alert and enterprising young newspaper man, I had been chosen by R. A. Crothers to be city editor of The Morning Call. At that time The Call and the Bulletin were both owned by the estate of Loring Pickering, the estate of a man named Simonton, and George K. Fitch, then living. There was a great deal of friction between Fitch and R. A. Crothers, who represented the Pickering estate, and shortly after I went on The Call as city editor, Fitch brought proceedings in the Federal court to have both papers sold at auction, as a means of settling the difficulties. I had been on The Call less than a year when the sale occurred. The Call was sold to Charles M. Shortridge for $361,000. A few days later R. A. Crothers bought the Bulletin for $35,500. The paper was at very low ebb, having a circulation of perhaps nine thousand, and advertising insufficient to meet the expenses. I think it was losing about $3000 a month. But Loring Pickering, before his death, had expressed a wish that his widow should hold the Bulletin for their son, Loring, then about 7 years old. The father's idea was that The Call in competition with the Examiner would be a difficult property to handle successfully, and he felt that the Bulletin could be developed into a paying paper. Before Loring Pickering died he gave his brother in law, Crothers, a very small interest in The Call, a twelfth of his one-third interest, which, when the paper was sold, realized a few thousand dollars. This sum, added to Crothers' savings as a lawyer in Canada, was sufficient to enable him to pay one-half of the Bulletin's purchase price. The other half was paid by his sister, Mrs. Pickering, who held her share in trust for her son, Loring. The purchase was made in Crothers' name and he became the ostensible owner of the paper. After the sale he found himself in possession of a property which was losing a large sum monthly. It was necessary |