The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, April 7, 1919, Page 10

4 T'he Life Story of a City Paper Editor | ~ Fremont Older, Editor of the San Francisco Bulletin for 23 Years, Tells . Inside Facts of Press Corruption and Famous Graft Cases ! e i V) b te e i e RS P Do o A AT AT BOTSS ot b Mt ot O BN e S O BN LB MR NN O £ 3 ] b 1 1 i i owned by R. A. Crothers. H ] i 1 1 L 1 1 ] : ! i ( . 4 Francisco - Bulletin, - a SAN FRANCISCO newspaper editor was sitting in his office. The telephone rang. A _voice said, over the wire, that if the editor wanted to learn some- thing important to come to a certain hotel. 'The editor start- ed. An automobile followed him. Armed men got out and forced him into the car. They told the editor they were arresting him for criminal libel and taking him to court. Instead of going toward the courthouse the automobile headed south. Twenty miles from San Francisco a stop was made and a train was boarded. The editor and his guards went into a private stateroom. - He was allowed to communicate with no one. The plan was to take the editor off the train into another automobile, to run through the mountains, to kill the editor and to claim that he was shot while attempting to escape. But someone »on the train recognized him and telegraphed back to San Francisco. The editor’s friends got out a writ of habeas corpus, had the train stopped, the editor taken from it and freed. ; ~ Fremont Older, the editor, tells about it in his book, “My Own Story,” put out by the Call Pub- lishing company, San Francisco. ) “The story of the affair spread around the world and the London Times printed a two-column story about it,” says Older. “Some time later I met @ member of the English parliament. I asked him if he had ever been in San Francisco before. “He said, ‘No. It’s a very interesting city. I've read some very strange stories about you people, but the incredible one I read in the London Times, a paper that I had always regarded as a truthful journal.’ INSIDE STORY OF POLITICAL CORRUPTION “‘What was the story?’ “‘It was an amazing story,” he said. ‘It was the story of the kidnaping in broad daylight of an edi- - tor. He was carried away in an automobile at the point of a pistol.’ “And I said, ‘Why, that’s a true story. I'm the editor.’ ” That is only one of the stories that Fremont Older tells in his book, which is an inside account of the fight of San Francisco against graft and: corruption. It is a story that in- cludes the shooting of Francis J. Heney, who prosecuted the graft- ers, the dynamiting of the houses of witnesses, the wholesale brib- ery of councilmen, legislators and courts, the purchasing of labor leaders to betray their followers, the corruption of the very papers that were supposed to be fighting for the people. It is the story of a reign of terror in San Francisco that is very much like the reign of terror in Minnesota in 1918, And the point that Older makes is that it is hard to make people believe that such things hap- pened in the United States in the twentieth century. Ry ; Fremont Older’s book is more than this: It is a frank confession of how newspapers are run. i For 28 years Older was editor of the San - paper that was supposed to stand for the inter- ests of the common peo- ple and for honest gov- ernment. The paper was Crothers was frankiy out for the money. He hired Older as editor be- cause Older was a .capable, wide-awake man, anxious to get all the facts and to .print them. Crothers was willing, even anxious, that the Bulletin should be a progressive paper, It drove to the sidewalk." /;;-\ & \C O, ép\ (1) < an item to this z effect: A “‘Boyle is f out for + Schmitz, Older is out for To- Since January, 1918, Uncle Sam h . working for the people, in between elections. But at election time he demanded sums ranging from $1,000 to $25,000 for the support of candi- dates. And the paper generally supported the highest bidder. As time went on Older discovered some of these things. ‘He found that from the first the Bulletin, posing as the friend of the people, was on the pay- ~.roll of the Southern Pacific railroad for $125 per month. As time went on this was increased to $250 and then to $375. This was not money paid for advertising. Older frankly says, “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.” SUPPORT OF PAPER TO HIGHEST BIDDER But this was only a sort of permanent retainer that the Bulletin demanded. At- first, when the Bulletin was small, Older was able, he says, to swing its support to candidates who would buy $500 or $1,000 worth of special editions. This was when Phelan, now United States senator, was first elected mayor of San Francisco. But when Phelan retired as mayor Crothers demanded more. .There were three candidates to succeed Phelan— Wells, the Southern Pacific candidate; Tobin, who had the support of the reform element that had elected Phelan, and Schmitz, who pretended to represent union labor but who will go down in his- tory as the head of an administration notorious for its graft and general rottenness. 2 Older wanted his paper to support Tobin. He knew Crothers would have to have some money, so he prevailed upon a friend-of Tobin’s to offer $1,500. “I did not dare to go to any one else, and I hoped, though faintly, that that would be enough,” says Older. “I went to Crothers with the information that I had got $1,500 to support Tobin and he said, ‘It isn’t enough.’ “A few days later the railroad paid Crothers $7,500. I learned of it almost. instantly. The report was confirmed by Crothers ordering me to support Wells. “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 (another newspaper) facetiously printed \\\{} \ Z 77 7 bin and Croth- U ) ‘ers.is out for WA the stuff!’ g —Drawn: expressly for the Leader by Congressman John M. Baer as been scrambling the railroads. The scrambling was absolutely necessary as a war measure. Now the railroad interests are demanding that they be given back, but the roads are too scrambled to be given back as they were. The lo, the whole scramble. One by-product of such a step corruption influence in gical thing is government ownership of would be the gain from removing a great press and ‘politics as indicated by the story on tion, 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 in standing for clean city politics, as we had done for several years, added weight to our new position in support of Wells. Thus, to my mind, every article we printed supporting him was a betrayal of our readers, who, gathering their knowledge of public events from . our columns, naturally formed their opinions upon what we gave them.” Members of the Nonpartisan league will have no trouble in thinking of papers that have pursued the same course as the San Francisco " Bulletin. In between elections they have been strong for the organized farmers. But at elec- tion time, instead of supporting the farmers’ candidates, their attitude has' changed sudden- ly. They have not dared, sometimes, to go the full length of supporting frankly a standpat candidate. They have thrown their support, in- stead, to a weak third candidate. They have thus split the progressive vote and have allow- ed a reactionary or crook to_sneak into office, - with a majority of the votes- against him. but with these votes divided. HOW HIGHER-UPS ESCAPED PUNISHMENT Older tells of the fight that followed fo uncover the graft of the Schmitz administration, how the trail led through the Tenderloin to grafting super- visors or councilmen, from them to the political boss, from him to the attorneys for the street rail- . way, and then to the president of the street railway, the railroad bosses and men theretofore highly re- spected in California. As long as the investigation involved only the- people of the underworld and the petty politicians, all San Francisco wanted a cleanup. But when the trail led to the higher-ups, it was different. : These men controlled public opinion through the press. Furthermore, they were “respectable” accord- ing to conventional stand- ards. : “The prominent people of San Francisco deserted us when we attacked their savior, Pat Calhoun,” says Older. The reformers lacked organization. ' They lacked a free press. “Now, through the long delays of the courts and the confusion, a general weariness was be- ginning to spread through the city. People were tired of hearing of the graft prosecution. We en- countered apathy on one hand and on the other the relentless determina- tion of powerful men who were fighting for their lives.” San . Francisco -was.- flooded with gunmen. The character of the reform- - ers was attacked in scan- dalous ways. Every pos- - sible device for delay was * adopted in the -courts. Jurors were bribed; wit- nesses were intimidated. Mistrials resulted. Busi- ness men fretted because the reputation -of - San’ Francisco was being hurt. Finally the business interests brought for- ward a new political ticket of their own. . The people, unorganized, poi- soned against their lead- ers, tired of delay, falter- . ed. The “business” ticket went over. Indictments against Calhoun and other leaders in the graft were dismissed. S The graft prosecution ended with one man, Abraham Ruef, the for- mer pohtical boss, behind this page, - higher up ‘escaped. i the bars, while the men. PO B . - P f‘,:u:, % 1 J P