port the strike. Thereupon the whole powerful part of the town became violently prejudiced against me because I helped to uphold the strike, and because I was attacking Calhoun, who in their opinion had crushed the strike and saved San Francisco from ruin.

I had in fact first attempted to prevent the strike that Calhoun had ordered, and then I had helped to hold the men steady by paying their benefit money, which was afterward repaid to me, in the hope that if they held together they could save something from the ruin in which Calhoun had involved them.

But in the eyes of the powerful people of the city I was branded as a dangerous agitator, plotting against the city's peace, while Calhoun was surrounded by a halo. I had no recourse except to continue as best I could to help in uncovering the truth in the courts.

Tirey L. Ford had been indicted with Calhoun. He was chief counsel for the United Railroads and was the man who had passed the $200,000 from Calhoun to Ruef for bribing the supervisors. He was placed on the calendar for trial before Calhoun, in the hope that if he were convicted he might come through with some confession involving Calhoun, in return for some leniency in his sentence.

While these cases were pending, and San Francisco. people in general were absorbed with their own personal affairs, the city became filled with armed detectives, employed either by Burns or by Calhoun. To one who knew the inside facts, the very air of the streets became tense. Every few feet one met a man who was working for one side or the other, and many men of prominence were constantly shadowed by both sides, and even the men who were following them were also followed and watched.

Shortly after Calhoun's indictment he sent a mutual friend to see me to ask me to name my price to quit the fight. I replied, "Tell Mr. Calhoun that I have no price, that nothing will stop me until he has been convicted and sent to the penitentiary."

In my relentless pursuit of him I stopped at nothing. I learned of a suit that a maiden sister had brought against him for having fleeced her out of $60,000. Calhoun had settled the case quickly when he found that Heney was working out here, but there was a court record in Atlanta, Georgia, and I went back to Atlanta personally to get it.

On this trip I spent my own money, $700, saved out of my salary. I had a transcript made of the case and certified to by the county clerk in Atlanta, and when the county clerk handed it to me and I paid his fee, he said:

"I don't know what you are going to do with this, but I imagine that you are going to take it to San Francisco to use

against Patrick Calhoun. Let me tell you something. He's a desperate man. He's a man who would not hesitate to blow up a whole theater full of people to get just one man that he hated."

From the time I returned to San Francisco I was never without a shadow. I never left my office that one or two men did not follow me to my hotel, which was the Fairmont. All sorts of traps were set to catch me. Women would call me upon the telephone and tell me that if I would come to such and such a room, in such and such an apartment house, I could get some very valuable information.

I avoided all these traps. The stress was very great and I was living under great excitement and worry. In the midst of this Mrs. Older and I were ostracised by many who had formerly been our friends.

After the indictment of Calhoun-who was a descendant of Patrick Henry, a Southern gentleman with a great deal of social prestige in the East, and necessarily here as well, pampered in our best clubs, entertained by our "best people," man, moreover, who had "saved" San Francisco's business interests when they were endangered by the car strike-local sentiment toward the graft prosecution changed overnight.

People who had known me quite intimately stopped speaking to me. Labor fell away from us because Eugene E. Schmitz was labor's mayor and they did not like to see him discredited by a group of men whom they considered to be hostile to labor. The wealthy people fell away from us because we were attacking one of their own class, Calhoun. So we were left between the two.

Up to this time I had been a fairly popular member of the Bohemian Club and used to greatly enjoy going there; but after we touched Calhoun there was hardly any one in the club who would speak to me. The ostracism became so acute that I finally resigned.

Mrs. Older and I had known and liked quite a few members of what is known as "society" in San Francisco, and they, of course, dropped us. One of the women called on Mrs. Older and told her that many of her friends liked her very much and would like to continue their friendship, but that they could not stand for the attitude of her husband.

Mrs. Older replied that she did not care for their friendship in that case; that she was perfectly willing to be ostracised with me; that she believed me to be right, and that was the only thing to be considered.

In the stress and strain of those days Mrs. Older and I tried to escape from it all every evening by going to the beach, where we had a tiny car-house attached to a restaurant managed by Mrs. Gunn. It was our one pleasure, just about

sunset, to go for a swim in the ocean, return to our car-house and then dine with Mrs. Gunn.

One evening, as I came from the office and crossed the sidewalk to the machine where Mrs. Older was waiting, a very good friend of mine, who had deep connections in the underworld, passed by me, and said warningly: "Keep away from the beach."

He did not stop to be questioned, but went quickly past me, as though he had not spoken to me.

The following letter has been received from Mr. John S. Irby, surveyor of customs, in the federal service here:

Mr. Fremont Older, Editor The Call-Dear Mr. Older: If your "My Own Story," which I am reading with avid interest as the most informing narration of my experience, is to be published in book form, may I not invite your attention to an error. You stated that Patrick Calhoun is related to Patrick Henry, the orator and patriot of our revolution, one of the early governors of Virginia. I am sure it was a lapsus calami.

While a man is not responsible for his relatives, only his friends, as a Virginian I am loath to allow Patrick Henry's memory to be thus impugned. Patrick Calhoun is related to John C. Calhoun, the South Carolina senator who died in 1850, known as "the great nullifier" because of his advocacy of the nullification act.

John C. Calhoun's father was named Patrick Calhoun. Thus the man who figures so prominently in your histories is named for the father of the South Carolina Senator. Very truly yours.

San Francisco, Nov. 8, 1918.

JOHN S. IRBY.

Patrick Calhoun often made the statement that he was related to Patrick Henry, and I based the statement in my story on Calhoun's assertion. FREMONT OLDER.

T

CALHOUN GROWS DESPERATE

HIS warning, "Keep away from the beach," I knew to be important. The man who had given it to me was my friend, and a man who was not given to false alarms.

But I was very angry at the thought of giving up my one pleasure, that daily swim in the surf with Mrs. Older and our quiet little dinner later in Mrs. Gunn's small restaurant. I determined that I would continue to have it.

So I secure two plain clothes men from the police department and went to the beach as usual, leaving the two officers sitting in the machine on the beach, watching. Nothing happened. Still I knew that the warning was not without significance, and so each day I took the plain clothes men with me, and never while we were at the beach allowed them to get out of sight.

Later I learned that Calhoun's men had employed a half-breed Mexican gunfighter to come from Arizona to San Francisco to "get" me. The day before my friend warned me, this Mexican was standing opposite the Bulletin office in front of the Phelan building, which was then in course of construction, when another well known gun fighter, who knew him very well, came along. He asked: "What are you doing here?"

The Mexican answered: "I'm waiting to see Older when he comes down."

"What's the idea?"

"Well, I am supposed to get him. They want me to go up into the Phelan building and shoot him through his window in the Bulletin office. They told me the noise of the steam riveters would sound so much like a rifle shot that it wouldn't be distinguished, but I'm leary of that. If it didn't, I wouldn't have any chance to get away. So I'm going out to get him at the beach, where he dines every night with his wife."

"What are you staying here for, then?"

"Well, I don't know him. I am waiting here till he comes down. There's a man over there who will lift his hat when Older comes through the door, and that will give me the signal who he is."

The man to whom the Mexican confided was a friend of the man who warned me. I had done favors for both of them

and they didn't want any harm to come to me. So the warning was given me, and that plan was thwarted by the two plain clothes men who guarded us whenever we were at the beach.

It was some years later that I heard from Peter Claudianos, now doing life in San Quentin for dynamiting the house of one of our star witnesses, Gallagher, of another plan which was spoiled by the plain clothes men. He told me that when plans were made for dynamiting Gallagher they thought they might as well dynamite me at the same time. So Felix Padauveris, who was in charge of the job, rented the cottage just below mine at the beach, and stored in the basement of it fifteen pounds of dynamite.

He and Claudianos visited the beach, breakfasted in Mrs. Gunn's restaurant, looked the situation over, and made all their plans for placing the dynamite. But the presence of the two plain clothes men frightened them and they abandoned the idea.

These things seem so melodramatic that it is almost incredible that they could have occurred in a peaceful city, whose people, most of them, were going about their ordinary routine affairs, and who, when they read of the graft prosecution, saw only the surface facts that were printed and were probably bored by them long before the fight ended. But the plots and counter plots of that time were innumerable.

Calhoun's detectives filled the city. Calhoun was desperate. He saw the penitentiary doors opening before him, in spite of his utmost efforts, and he stopped at nothing to save himself or to get revenge upon his implacable enemies.

After Roy had become friendly with me we all felt very grateful to him and used to dine or lunch in his restaurant as often as we could. The restaurant was on Van Ness avenue near Sutter street, Van Ness avenue being at that time the center of the city, since downtown San Francisco was not yet rebuilt.

One morning about 11 o'clock I dropped into Roy's restaurant for breakfast. I always wanted to have a chat

with him, and, not seeing him, I asked the waiter where he The waiter said: "He's over there in the corner.

was.

Don't you see him?"

Roy was sitting with his back to me, talking to a strange man. After a moment he rose, and, coming over to me, handed me an envelope, with an affable smile, saying: "Look at this. Pretend. As soon as that man goes out I have something to tell you."

He went back. When the man went out Roy came over and told me that he was Luther Brown, whom Calhoun had brought from Los Angeles to head his force of detectives.