Then I killed several articles that had been prepared by the editorial writer favoring the charter. For several days we were silent.

This brought Charley Fay up to the office. He said: "What the hell's the matter with the Bulletin?" That frightened me.

I went to the editorial writer and told him to write a

strong editorial supporting the charter. He looked at me strangely and said: "What's the use? It will be killed." "No," I replied. "It will not be killed. This one won't. You write it and I'll publish it tomorrow."

The next day I published it in the Bulletin without consulting the owner. The campaign was so nearly over that I was able to finish it without any further complaint from Mills. We won the charter fight and the paper and I came out of it clean, so far as Phelan's knowledge went.

Phelan's first administration was a huge success. The people greatly appreciated the little he had been able to do for them and he became very popular. He was elected a second time under the new charter, to administer it, and then he was elected a third time. It was during these years that Henry T. Gage was picked by Herrin as Republican candidate for governor.

By this time the Bulletin was prospering. The circulation had gone over 20,000; we had cut out the losses and were showing a profit every month. So when it came to a question of supporting Gage, although the Bulletin was a Republican paper and Gage was the nominee of the Republican party, Crothers felt that the influence of the Bulletin was worth more than the Southern Pacific had been paying.

He insisted that I go to Mills and demand $25,000 from the railroad for supporting Gage. I told him that this was ridiculous, that they wouldn't consider such a sum for a minute. He insisted that he would have $25,000 or he wouldn't support Gage, and demanded that I tell Mills that.

I knew Mills very well socially and liked him. In fact, our families were friends. Mills knew how I felt about this sort of thing and he knew Crothers' attitude, so I could be perfectly frank with him. I called on him and said, laughingly, "How much do you think Crothers wants to support Gage?"

He said, "I haven't any idea. Why, how much?"
"Twenty-five thousand," I said.

Mills laughed aloud. He said, "He's joking, isn't he?" I said, "No, he wants that."

"Well," he said, "he won't get it. You can tell him that from me. I'll see Boyle, the business manager, and fix things up a little better for him."

I learned later that they increased the Bulletin's subsidy

to $375 a month. The first $125 was for friendliness, the next was to go light on the charter, and the last was for supporting Gage for governor of California.

We were in this position, and I was still maintaining my reputation for honesty with Phelan and his group, when the teamsters' strike occurred, out of which came Eugene E. Schmitz as a political figure in San Francisco.

THE TOBIN-WELLS-SCHMITZ CAMPAIGN

N THE teamsters' strike in 1901, Phelan was put in a very embarrassing position. The Teamsters' Union, striking for better conditions, had tied up all the teams in San Francisco. Business was practically stopped.

The merchants, also strongly organized, found non-union men to put on the wagons, and demanded police protection for them. They insisted that the streets were made for traffic, that the teams should be allowed to move upon them, that no power on earth should be permitted to delay them.

Phelan hesitated, but the pressure upon him from his old friends and associates was strong; they urged their opinion, which to a certain extent was Phelan's also, as a member of his class. In the end he reluctantly yielded, putting policemen on the wagons with orders to protect the drivers and see that the teams were kept moving.

The strikers formed in mobs and attacked the wagons and the police. There were riots in the streets, men were killed and crippled, goods were destroyed. There was a miniature reign of terror, and armed conflicts raged daily.

The leading merchants urged the Bulletin to stand for "law and order," and against the strikers. It was our inclination to do so anyway, but the merchants held out high hopes for the future of the people if we would stand "right" in the fight. When the Examiner took the side of the strikers our business office had visions of a harvest of advertising contracts.

The merchants immediately undertook to boycott the Examiner for its stand. They tentatively organized for the purpose, but one or two of the business houses refused to sign the agreement, and so defeated their purpose. However, the largest advertising firm in town did withdraw its advertisement from the Examiner for a short time.

At length the strike ended, with a compromise. The teamsters did not get all they had demanded, but they went back to work after having gained a part of it. Labor was enthusiastic for the Examiner, which had fought the labor fight, and that paper's circulation was larger than ever. Immediately the largest advertising firm in town went back, increasing its advertising space there and cutting down the space formerly given us.

When our advertising manager remonstrated, he was told, "Business is business. We are advertising strictly on a proposition of circulation, and your circulation has gone down."

This was true. We had come out of the strike boycotted by labor union men. And we had gained nothing from the business men who had promised to support us.

The trouble had stirred workingmen more deeply than any previous labor trouble. They were advised by the Rev. Father Yorke, who had their confidence, that the thing for them to do was to go into politics and elect a mayor. They organized politically, held a convention, and selected as their standard bearer Eugene E. Schmitz.

Schmitz was at that time a member of the Musicians' Union and leader of the Columbia Theater orchestra. He was every inch the right looking man for a candidate. Tall, well formed, handsome, always well dressed and self-possessed, he was a commanding figure of a man, the center of all eyes in a crowd.

The campaign was a three-cornered one. Asa R. Wells was the Southern Pacific candidate; Schmitz ran as a labor party man; Joseph S. Tobin was the Democratic nominee. The Democrats had tried to persuade Phelan to run, but he had been mayor three times and refused. The best man that could be selected from his group of reformers was Tobin. He had been a supervisor under Phelan, had always fought with the reform element, and had a fine record. He was considered a strong character and a capable, honest man.

Of course, I was very anxious that the Bulletin should pursue the same course it had followed since Phelan first ran for mayor. I wanted to stand firmly by the group of men who had worked with him through the charter fights and through the various reform movements they had undertaken here.

I felt that my personal honor, or rather, their belief in my honesty and my efforts to deserve that belief, was involved in my fighting for these men, whom I respected and in whom I believed. But I was afraid that I would not be able to hold the paper for Tobin because of the money question.

I could not go to Phelan and ask him for money, because I had never betrayed to him that the Bulletin took money; nor could I go to Tobin, who was close to Phelan. But I knew that I must get some money in order to hold the paper to the Phelan group.

I went to Prince Poniatowski, brother in law of Will Crocker, who was a close friend of Tobin. I told him my predicament in confidence and insisted that he must get some

money that I could give to Crothers to hold the paper for Tobin. Otherwise it would go where there was more money for it; that is, to the railroad company. The excuse would be that Wells was a Republican, that the Bulletin was a Republican paper, that it had been locally Democratic too long and would now return to its own party. Crothers had already intimated this to me.

Poniatowski said: "I will do all I can, but the best I' can do personally is $500 a month for three months through the campaign. I will put up the $1500 out of my own pocket."

I did not dare to go to anyone else, and I hoped, but faintly, that this would be enough. I went to Crothers with the information that I had got $1500 to support Tobin, and he said, "It isn't enough."

I was in despair. Only one other ruse remained by which I might hold him. I asked former Mayor E. B. Pond, banker and millionaire; James D. Phelan, mayor and millionaire, and Franklin K. Lane, then a rising power in California, to call on Crothers and see if they could not prevail on him to stand by Tobin. Always greatly impressed by wealth, I felt that their prominence and financial standing might hold him.

They called, and did their best, but made no impression. Then I wrote an editorial which committed the paper mildly to Tobin, but I did not dare publish it without Crothers seeing it. He was keen on the money scent by this time. When I showed it to him, he said: "The article commits the paper to Tobin." He took a pencil and marked out certain phrases, so that the editorial left the paper on the fence, in such a position that it could support any of the three candidates. I published the editorial as corrected. It was the best I could do.

A few days later the railroad paid Crothers $7500. It was paid to him by a man not openly connected with the railroad. I learned of it almost instantly. The report was confirmed by Crothers ordering me to support Wells.

Tobin learned of the payment of the money and severely criticised me. Then I went to Tobin and told him frankly what had happened, and that I had done all in my power to hold the paper for him. He apologized and said that he was very sorry, that he did not blame me.

Thomas Boyle, the business manager of the Bulletin, at that time was a strong advocate of Schmitz. I, of course, was for Tobin. Crothers was for Wells. The Call facetiously printed an item to this effect:

"Boyle is out for Schmitz, Older is out for Tobin, and Crothers is out for the stuff."

The situation, of course, became well known to the men on the inside of the political situation, but equally, of course, it was not known to the mass of our readers. Our very action