A

MY MISSION A FAILURE

RMED with the letter from Bishop Newman, I went East to see McKinley personally in regard to Waymire's appointment as secretary of the interior. McKinley had most cordially telegraphed me the time at which he would see me, and upon my arrival in Canton he received me at his home, in his drawing room. I had traveled through ice and snow across the continent for this interview with the future President, and was nervous and keyed up with excitement.

McKinley's face lighted up when I mentioned Judge Waymire.

"Oh, yes, the dear judge!" he said. "How is he? I love Judge Waymire."

I seemed to hear a sinister warning in these words. I had heard them before. Senator Perkins had used them. They had cheered me then, and I had believed them, but now I was doubtful.

"Waymire is one of my dearest friends," said McKinley. "How is he getting along? Tell me all about him!"

I approached the question of the appointment to the cabinet, and McKinley, saying that we could talk better upstairs, led me up to his bedroom and closed the door. I produced the scorching letter from Bishop Newman, protesting against the appointment of McKenna.

"The dear old bishop!" said McKinley. He read the letter without a change of expression, bland and smiling. "Now he raises here what seems to me a very trivial point," he said. "Of course, I'm a deacon in my church-I love Newman, I love the dear old bishop-but he says here that I should not appoint McKenna because he is a Catholic. Would that make any difference to you, Mr. Older?"

"Not any at all," I said. "But that's because I have no feeling about any church. They all mean the same to me. Of course I believe in the doctrines of Christ. I consider His message the most beautiful ever given the world. But I have no feeling about sects. However, if I had

"Now, the bishop says here that Archbishop Ireland has been to see me-and that Huntington has been to see me. That is true, and I have talked with them both. But they have had no influence with me, no influence at all. You know, Mr. Older, a Cabinet is a family matter-one might

call the Cabinet a large, harmonious family. In picking a Cabinet you choose men whose work you know now wouldn't you, Mr. Older?"

"You have McKenna in mind, no doubt," I said.

"Yes," he replied. "When I was chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, McKenna, then in Congress, was on the committee with me. Thus coming in close contact with him I came to know him well. If you were going to employ a writer on the Bulletin, Mr. Older, wouldn't you pick a man whose work you knew?"

"Probably not," I said, "if there were two men whose work was equally good, and this man had tried to prevent me from holding the position that made it possible for me to give him the job."

"What do you mean?"

"McKenna was against you for the nomination," I said. "He openly urged his political friends in California to support Tom Reed."

For just an instant this seemed to disconcert McKinley, but he rallied quickly and said, “No doubt Reed at some time has done McKenna a favor. That should not count against him."

Then I spoke about Waymire and his ability and talents. McKinley agreed to all I said, and repeated that he loved Waymire. He said also that he had not fully decided to give McKenna the place. McKenna would not take it unless the President would promise to put him on the Supreme Bench later. McKenna would not give up a $6000 a year life job on the Federal bench for a four-year job at $8000 a year as Secretary of the Interior. He would not take the Cabinet position unless McKinley would promise him a life job later, which McKinley told me he hesitated to do. However, he would make no promises for Waymire.

McKinley later appointed McKenna attorney general, thus avoiding offense to his Methodist friends who didn't want McKenna in the Department of the Interior, which has something to do with the schools. He subsequently elevated him to the Supreme bench.

I wired Waymire the result of my interview and he advised my seeing Mark Hanna. I went on to Cleveland and called on Hanna. I told him what McKinley had said about McKenna and Waymire.

"Why do you come to me?" he inquired.

"Because," I replied, "you wrote a letter to Waymire before the election saying he would get a Cabinet position, and knowing that you are the politician of the firm, I thought you would decide it."

"So I am the politician of the firm, am I?"

"You are so regarded all over America."

Hanna rose from his chair and came over close to me and said: "Mr. Older, I am a baby in politics compared with our good friend in Canton. He has already decided upon McKenna. If you had understood the language of politics you would have saved yourself this trip. Give my love to Waymire and tell him I am sorry, but it can't be helped."

I returned to California. My first experience in politics had ended disastrously for my hopes. But the local election of 1896 brought me other and more encouraging experiences. It was an important election from my point of view, because from the beginning of the campaign I felt that it would help the Bulletin tremendously if I could win a political victory in which a mayor would be elected.

The entire state at that time was politically controlled by the Southern Pacific. In order thoroughly to dominate the state it not only controlled the Legislature, the courts, the municipal governments, the county governments, which included coroners, sheriffs, boards of supervisors, in fact, all state and county and city officials, but it also had as complete a control of the newspapers of the state as was possible, and through them it controlled public opinion.

There was hardly an editor who dared criticise to any extent the railroad domination. Country editors, many of them, were satisfied with an annual pass for the editor and his wife. Some of the larger ones expected and got money for advertisements. Some of the metropolitan papers fared better, and among these was the Bulletin.

This use of money and favors was quite open. No one seemed to criticise it. At every session of the Legislature, in addition to the secret money that was distributed, blue tickets were openly handed about. On Friday or Saturday when the Legislature adjourned until Monday, railroad lobbyists passed these blue tickets around among all the members and all the newspaper men and all the attaches of both houses. These tickets entitled the holder to a free passage to San Francisco and return.

Even Supreme Court judges traveled on annual passes and made no secret of it, and all influential people traveled to and from the East without any cost. I have been on an overland train when there were only three or four people on the entire train that had a ticket they had paid for. In the Pullman I was in none had even paid for their berths. One man, a cigar drummer, had a pass for meals at the eating stations. I remember one session of the Legislature in the early nineties, when a certain assemblyman from San Francisco told me that all of his leading constitutents had told him to get all he could up there, and he was quite open in taking money, dis

cussing boodle in committee meetings, and rising to make inquiries as to whether or not there was any money coming up from Fourth and Townsend. The railroad building was located there at that time.

No fight of any consequence had been made against this state of affairs. Corporations were regarded as legitimate business enterprises bound up with the welfare of the community, and people believed that they should have special privileges, that they must have special privileges in order to succeed, and that they must succeed if the community was to be prosperous.

This was the state of affairs when I began casting about for a candidate for mayor who could make a conspicuous, winning fight, and reflect credit upon the Bulletin. I had sense enough to know that there would be nothing brilliantly conspicuous in getting behind Herrin, the railroad boss, and helping him to put his mayor in. What I wanted was a fight against the machine, and it must be a winning fight.

Earnestly considering the situation, I thought of James D. Phelan. He was rich, which gave him leisure and made him independent of money considerations; he was of Irish stock and a Catholic. I thought that if the Bulletin, which had been a very solemn, conservative paper under the old management, were to take up a political fight for a popular, clean young rich man, it would help the paper tremendously.

A

PHELAN FOR MAYOR

T that time the Southern Pacific Railroad dominated not only the Republican party, but also, to a large extent, the Democratic organization. Practically every one of influence supported the railroad, because it was in control, and thus the sole dispenser of political favors.

A man who wanted anything that political power could give went to Bill Higgins, the Republican boss, who responded to Herrin, or to Sam Rainey, the Democratic boss, who responded to Herrin, or he went to Sacramento to the railroad lobbyists, who were henchmen of Herrin. The rest of the people did not count.

The Southern Pacific was openly the Republican party. When there was a Republican governor in Sacramento the office of the governor was Herrin's office in San Francisco. If a group of men wanted anything from the governor, they did not go to see the governor; they went to see Herrin. He would put it through for any one whom he liked; that is, for any one who would be useful to him.

So far as I know, this control of Herrin's was absolute in California except in San Francisco. Here there was a small rebellious group of Democrats, headed at that time by Gavin McNab, a young and ambitious clerk in the Occidental Hotel, who was studying law in his spare time. He had a great deal of energy and dash and spirit, and was strong against crooked politics. While he was a hotel clerk, with no money except his salary, he already had a small but growing influence, and I took him into account in considering my problem.

There were many angles to my difficulty. Politically, the Bulletin had always been Republican. R. A. Crothers had very strong Republican convictions, and, as I have said, so far as I had any political opinions at the time, they were also Republican.

In addition to this, the Bulletin was on the payroll of the Southern Pacific Railroad for $125 a month. This was paid not for any definite service, but merely for "friendliness. Being always close to the line of profit and loss, it was felt the paper could not afford to forfeit this income. Yet I felt strongly the advantage to our circulation which would come from a startling political fight in which we should be victori