permit. When Heney declined the position the labor men agreed to accept Chief Justice Beatty of the Supreme Court.

There was a long investigation made of the claims of the carmen for more pay, a lot of testimony was taken and it occupied some time before the matter was adjusted. The men were not satisfied with the terms that the United Railroads was willing to make. Calhoun seized upon the situation to bring on a strike among the carmen. The deal was made in Mayor Schmitz' house, with Bowling, secretarytreasurer of the carmen's union, acting with Calhoun and Schmitz.

Cornelius, the president of the Carmen's Union; Michael Casey, Andrew Furuseth and other labor men were anxious to prevent the carmen from striking, fearing they would lose and hoping that Heney's investigation would lead to the discovery of the bribery of the supervisors by Calhoun.

In this situation, Cornelius stood against the strike and Bowling for it. Our plan was to try to bring about a secret ballot, reasoning that if the men voted secretly they would vote against the strike. Bowling was advocating an open ballot, counting on the men's fear to vote openly against the strike. Bowling won out.

We so nearly succeeded that I still believe that if we had been able to get a secret ballot in the meeting which declared the strike, we would have averted it. But Bowling's influence and strategy were too much for us. He succeeded in putting the question to a viva voce vote.

The question of striking was trembling in the balance. But many men were not brave enough to rise and openly vote "No" against a strike for higher wages. Bowling, working with Calhoun and Schmitz, had so inflamed certain elements in the union that others did not dare openly to stand against them. The men rose, one by one, and voted "Yes."

Immediately the streetcars were tied up. This second calamity, falling upon the disaster of the fire, halting the city's attempt at rebuilding, infuriated the businessmen and property owners of San Francisco. Calhoun knew the city; he knew what would influence the powerful men of the city. He knew that San Francisco was in ruins and that the businessmen above all things wanted the street cars to run, otherwise they would be utterly ruined.

With the entire approval of the businessmen of San Francisco, he imported professional gangs of strike breakers, headed by Farley, and attempted to run the cars. The strikers attacked these strike breakers viciously. Rioting broke out on the streets, men were beaten, crippled, killed. The city was in a turmoil. In the midst of it, in the most picturesque way, Calhoun rode up and down Market street

in his machine, winning tremendous admiration from the business people and property owners.

"There's a man who isn't afraid of anything! He's for San Francisco and the rebuilding of San Francisco. He'll break this strike and save us, if any man can," they said on every hand. Calhoun could not have made a better move than to secretly force this strike, and then boldly and openly to break it, by force.

It was the one brilliant move by which he could have endeared himself to the powerful people of San Francisco, who hated labor unions anyway, and particularly at this time, when the hard work of rehabilitation and desperate task of keeping business going depended on the street cars moving.

While the strike was in progress the men were receiving $5 a week each in benefits, and one week the money did not come, $5000 for a thousand men. The international president, McMahon, was away from his home office and had failed to send it. The labor men who had been with me in the fight to prevent the strike came to me and said: "If we don't have $5000 by 1 o'clock today, the strike will be broken. If the men don't get their $5 apiece at 1 o'clock they'll give in and go back to work, and all their efforts and suffering will come to nothing."

W

LEADING UP TO CALHOUN

HILE I had exerted every effort of which I was cacapable, in trying to prevent the calling of the streetcar strike, still I did not want to see the strike lost now and the men who had already been led into so much suffering forced to lose their chance of getting something out of it all.

Since it was necessary to have the $5000 by 1 o'clock that afternoon, if these men were to get their strike benefits and be held in line, I determined to do my utmost to provide the five thousand.

I found two friends who were willing to lend me $2500 each. I had the money changed into $5 gold pieces, put it in a sack and sent it out to the headquarters of the Carmen's Union. Bowling, the traitor secretary-treasurer who had planned the strike with Calhoun, was there. The sack was given to him and he was told to distribute the money to the men. He was obliged to do so, but he kept the sack and carried it to Calhoun as evidence that I had saved the men from losing the strike at that time.

Shortly afterward Calhoun, by using a force of strikebreakers, succeeded in crushing the strike he had begun, and the men went back to work, beaten. Calhoun was the hero of the day.

In the meantime, however, we had struck a trail that was leading us hot on his track. We were getting closer to him every day.

While we were in the midst of our investigations, Schmitz suddenly left for Europe. The day after he left it was announced in the newspapers that he had dismissed the president of the Board of Works, Frank Maestretti. The news

came as a thunderbolt.

Could it be possible that Ruef and Schmitz had dared to dismiss Frank Maestretti, a man who, we felt convinced, was in on all the city graft, or at least knew of it?

I was very much excited and sent for Maestretti and Golden M. Roy. Roy I knew to be a close friend of Maestretti. They were partners in Pavilion Skating Rink. They came to my office and I talked with them about the removal of Maestretti. They still hoped that he would be reinstated by wire from Schmitz.

I said: "Well, if he is not, perhaps you will be willing

to talk with me." After some discussion, they left, saying that they would know about it next day, and asking me to call on them then.

The following day I called on them in their office at Pavilion Rink. I told them that I represented powerful interests in San Francisco who were going to get the facts of the graft, and that I thought they would do well to get in on the ground floor with me. They admitted that they could tell me some very interesting things, but they put me off, saying that they would see me again.

Maestretti followed me out of the office and warned me against Roy, saying that he was a Ruef man and could not be trusted. When I reported this to Burns he very cleverly analyzed it as meaning that Maestretti wanted the whole thing to himself and wanted Roy shut out.

I carried to Rudolph Spreckels the news of the possibilities that I thought lay in Roy and Maestretti, and Spreckels said: "Can you trust them?"

I said: "Well, unfortunately, Rudolph, the crimes that were committed here were not known to respectable people like Bishop Nichols or our leading prelates. If we are going to get anywhere, we've got to get our information from crooks."

Burns had many meetings with Maestretti, and he soon discovered that Roy was the man who knew it all, and that unless we could get Roy we could get nowhere.

"Work on Roy," he said.

In my eagerness to get information from Roy my mind went back to the days before the fire. At that time Roy owned a jewelry store on Kearny street near the Bulletin office. A friend of his called on me and said that Schmitz had offered Roy a position as police commissioner. Having a wife and family whom he dearly loved, Roy did not want to take the place if I were going to attack him.

I said: "Well, tell him to come up and see me." Roy called and I told him that if they offered him this position, they expected him to take their program, and that if he took their program it would be a crooked program, and therefore it would come under my criticism. It was impossible, in my judgment, that they would appoint him with any other idea than that he would stand in with their graft.

He insisted that he could be honest, even though a Schmitz police commissioner. But I remained unconvinced, and in the end he did not accept the position.

Later, in the Schmitz campaign, Roy organized what he called the "Schmitz Business Men's League," and I published an article that was really gentle, coming from me at that time, in which I reproved Roy for having anything to do with

Schmitz, saying that he was a man of family, that he ought not to risk his reputation by affiliating with such men as Ruef and Schmitz.

I learned that this criticism worried him tremendously, and this gave me an idea. I had a very violent personal attack written on Roy. It was a page article, embellished with pictures. I raked up everything in Roy's activities that could place him in a discreditable light before the community. Then I had a proof page of this article printed secretly in the Bulletin office, and when it was ready I laid it face down on my desk and sent for Roy. Burns was waiting in an adjoining

room.

Roy came into my office. He said: "Well, what can I do for you, Mr. Older?" in what I thought was a patronizing tone. I was very much excited.

"You can't do anything for me," I said, "but I'm going to put you in the penitentiary." I picked up the page and handed it to him to read.

He began to read it, turned pale, and reeled on his feet. "Read it all," I said.

"I'm reading it all."

He finished, laid it down and said: "What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to tell the truth.”

"All right," he said. "I'm willing to tell you the trutheverything." I pressed a button and Burns came in. I turned Roy over to Burns and left the room.

In a little while Burns called me and said: "Roy wants to see his friends before he talks."

I said: "I don't think we ought to let him see his friends. It's a friend, it isn't friends. It's Ruef he wants to see." Roy sat there without saying a word.

"No," Burns said, "I think it best to let him see his friends."

I said nothing more, and after a moment Roy got up and walked out. He was shadowed, of course. He went directly to his home, where his wife and children were, and stayed there, sending no messages and telephoning nobody till midnight. Then he telephoned Burns and asked to see him. When they met he told Burns much that he knew about the Ruef briberies, and this interview led directly to the confessions of the eighteen supervisors who had taken money in the overhead trolley franchise deal. We had reached Calhoun at last.