The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, November 19, 1905, Page 3

KRUEFBORYY, mbra—your big dience than person.” If fu evidence that extraordinary ab wh e has pot there can be no clash of opinion, I be- Rl T aakae Yo A TS I wouldn't have believed that fact could be so like fiction it I hadn't seen 1t for myself. ical been have read of the moment descriptions their ante-rooms g that in T call on fact the poker sense) end not until Mr. Ruef do I sometimes approaches realize how closely secking the privilege buzz- age from b in the impre: name guaran- flice boy's ear the magic teed as a password So, 100, is the na er room on office in wk courtiers ing his speed and pre- tomatic cision 18 needed, for they His 1Is almc a =ion Mr. Ruef s know, how many more s t e are packed with hard-breath- P rs swelling with importuni- never seems to as the suppliants dis- or into the private return, there come new the other door, like grain of course, chairs enough and they sit on the corners ks and drape themselves spitting meditatively Ruef’s office carpet and oblit- the with slow, careful deposit jating themseives Mr. is stenographer, and who recelves their indiffer- transferring their ineffective bland- to Mr. Ruef's father at another conversa- ally with Ruef’s sister, who is ances with well-sustained cnce ishre desk, and, when they fail there agaln, the favor of the office boy, who his- own way, a master of diplo- office All the types are here that you find in —a paragon among boys. a cartoonist's album or between the cov- of the best seller—even the purple ght who hoarsely whispers alcoholic ences to the general public from be- the back of his hand. Every now and then the door opens a wee crack and glves glimpses of duplicates and new types—now a bulbous ruddy nose in- d from the corridor, again a sullen with the face impatient inquiry * and a jerk of the head T room. My turn comes, most graciously, out ot all too soon, for I am finding joy jn the pageant. I too pass gh gic door. You should find a boss, if only you id depend on the cartoonists and common report, like the renowned Joey Bagstock, “rough and tough and dev'lish sly.” Yet Mr. Ruef is none of these 1y. He is suave, as smooth as cream, amiable and affable and frank—almost ostentatiously frank He offers me a luxurious little hand, white d soft, in an almost handshake, and asks cor- What can I do for you? What would you like to know? Where shall we begin?” A boss—agaln according to the car- d common report—is usually mboyant, and al- ster making And again Mr. Ruef is none of these. He is a little man, dark, rather deli- tely constructed, fastidious and 1d conciliating, almost fe- He is man, but not insig- The center of a group of men a room he is still the principal fig- that through some curious of personality stands out most gly and engages your attention. s very well tailored, not with the the modishness of clubman, fashion, and rt business without a glittering evidences of luence on waistcoat, cravat or fin- r. He has the large eyes of the senti- 1talist, and, indeed, confides to me & sentimental—entirely too much moved by sentiment for a practical politician; but there are times when the eyes narrow to a beady glitter in resentment, displeasure or concentra- tion Contradicting the sentimentality of the eyes is the uncompromising width of the jowl—the mark of the boss the world over. The tout ensemble is that .ef the French Jew. 1 hazard the guess and he tells me I right, very nearly right, that his her and mother are lsatians, and the home tongues are French and German as well as Eng- lish. He is sharp, successful Jew, as distinguished the type of the shrewd, from the dreamer-artist type so beau- tifully portrayed in Rabbi Nieto. “Why did you go into politics?” I ask Mr. Ruef. “At first for interest. I thought every man should take part in politics. I was enthusiastic and full of theories—I was young then, only twenty-one.” “Then—" “Then for revenge.” “And now?” “Well—you can't stand still in any- thing. I am in and I must stay in. A man in my position—" “In politics?” “Yes; in politics, must either fight all the time to hold his place or give it up. It will be taken from him. That's the game. In politics you are always making cnemies and you can't sit down and let them get the best of you—at least I can't. So, @s long as I AM iIn politics that is w y I stay in.” Mr. Ruef is frank—even to the verge of ingenuousness. The man at the top can afford to say what he pleases, even as the king may in- Gulge his eccentricities. I am come to interview him, I tell him, in his character of Boss. He Mifts a protesting hand in denial, but it is half-hea-ted denial, as unconvinc- ing as the shake of the head and the pleased smile of a pretty woman vghen you tell her she is pretty. It is only good manners for the pretty woman to protest. , it is only discretion for the Boss to lift that unconvineing hand. With the ncxt breath we are off full tilt in a discussion of bosses in general and our San Francisco boss in particu- lar. “Things are done differently out here to the way they are done in the East,” Mr. Ruef explains. “When I made my speech at the Alhambra—the big spesch TH SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY /fl/ B I G DN i T rc CALL h 4 19, N BY MLL —it was the first time in the history of politics that a reputed boss ever did such 2 thing, that he ever so openly declared himself.” Under a bombardment of ,rapid-fire interruptions he tells me of his entry into politics. The interruptions disturb him not In the least. He signs let- ters, dictates telegrams, gives orders, answers his phone, disposes with a few quick words—always suave, always friendly, good-natured, to the point— of the callers who burst through one door and then the other, going on all the while with the story to me witiout losing a syllable or a comma. “I remember my first experience In politics, because it was so picturesque that it made an indelible impression on me. It was twenty years ago, and I wasn't quite 21. I was studying law. I had graduated from the university— one of the youngest students ever grad- uated from it. I finished the grammar school course when I was 11. I grad- uated from high school at 14. I got my university degree before I was 19. Quick work? Well, yes; but my mind works quickly—it wasn't by digging that T got through.” It works, indeed, as I can see in his dispatch of business with a sort of darting, lightning-like rapidity. He completes your thought before you have expressed it. “Boylike, I was Interested in politics and full of theories. I was enthusiastic about doing my duty in politics, taking a part In the Government and all that sort of thing, so, when I saw a little notice in the paper that the Republican club of my precinct would meet that night I couldn’t wait until it was time to go to that meeting. I went down—it was just a few blocks from my home— to 915 Sansome street. I remember the number well, and when I got there, al- though it was early, so early that I thought the meeting hadn’t commenced, I found everything dark. The door was locked. I humted around for a bell or a,_knocker, but couldn’t find any, so I pounded on the door. By and by a man opened it—a big, hard-looking fel- low, with a scar across his face as though he'd been slashed with a cut- lass. He had a lantern in his hand and opened the door just wide enough to get his nose though and see who was outside. “‘What d'ye want? he asked. “‘1 came to attend the meeting,’ I said. “‘Of—um-m—ye-es. Is that so? Who are you? What's yer name? Where'd you live? What d'you want to do at the meeting? “I told him all he wanted to know about myself and that I thought of joining the club. * ‘Oh—ye-es.” Then he thought a while. Then he opened the door until the crack was wide enough to let me in, and said, ‘Well, the meeting’s over, but come in, anyhow.’ “There were a couple more men sit- ting around a rusty stove. The man with the scar put the lantern down and told the other® who I was and what I wanted. Then they started in and told me what a fine meeting they'd had, how much enthusiasm there was, what a large attendance, what business had been done, and all that sort of thing. “It was a queer place, and I wouldn’'t have been surprised if T'd gone down through a trapdoor, but queer as it was I didn't know that the three or four men were all of the Re- publican club and the account of the meeting purely Imaginary. ““What's the matter,’ the scar-faced man asked, ‘with makin’ this young teller secretary? I started to decline, and he asked, ‘Can you write?” I ad- mitted I could write my name any- how, but asked how about the secre- tary already in action. “‘Oh, that's all right. Never mind him. Say, you write a notice of this here meeting and send it to the papers, that's what you can do.’ “I thought I was getting into politics pretty fast, and was so pleased that I wrote out three separate accounts of the meeting—as they described It to me, ftelling about the membership of 140 and the enthusiasm, and took them down to the papers. The next morn- ing I had the satisfaction of ' seeing them in the papers just as I had writ- ten them. That was the making of the club. The Republicans on the out- side thought it was too good to be overlooked with all those members, and the voters in the district didn't want to be left out of it, and the result was it really did grow until it con- trolled the district. K “That was my first Aesson in pol- ities, . “Then they made me a delegate from that district to the Republican vention before I knew what a conven- tion was or what a delegate had to do or could do. “At the convention my scar-faced friend voted us in blocks. 1 didn't know just what to do about it. . I didn’t like it. I wanted to do my own voting, so the next time therc was any votingito be done I said I would do it for myself. “*Say, young feller, you're pro- grammed—you ain’t got nothin’ to say about this’ my scar-faced friend ex- plained to me. “I told him I thought I had, and that T'd do my own voting. He wanted to know how I was going te vete. I con- ST K/INGI FN DARE. -~ - - told him, and as it happened to be his way that time he said it was all right, to go ahead if I just wanted the ex- ercise of doing my own voting. I dldn’t like the arrangement, so I looked around to see what I could do. X found a man who was marked as a lamb for sacrifice and I took hold of his name. When it came up I got up and spoke to the convention, making a fight against the programme. When I got up I didn't know what I was go- ing agalnst, but before I'd been talk- ing very long I saw several guns come out of pockets and knew there was trouble brewing. Nothing serious hap- pened, but I got my man nominated and I broke the slate. That was the first time I took independent action. “After that I took no very active part in politics until I urged Joha H. Nelson for State Senator in '90. Thenm I found that although the district was strongly Republican the Republicans were workingg against him—to defeat me. I &idn't Mke that, so I went to work in’politics, giving one hour a day to my law bysiness and the rest of the time to the paign—and Nelson was elected.” “And then you formed the Union Labor party?” “No, don’t say formed. ized it.” One word is as good as another here— and Mr. Ruef has his own way. “What makes,” I ask him as an ao- thority, “what makes a successful poli~ ticlan?” “Four things,” he answers. “He must have ability, e must have honesty. he must have energy, he must have consid- eration for those around him.” “What makes the successful boss?™ “I am not a boss,” he deprecates. “But—" “Not in the ordinary sense; not what is commonly known as a boss. I nev dictated to any man In my life.” “But you have advised and suggested?* “Yes." “And the victory is yours!™ Mr. Ruef leans back in his office chalr, and interlaces his white fingers and smiles, and I smile, too. Who could help 1t? His smile {s so much like the “smile on the face of the tiger,” in that ditty about “a young lady of Niger.” Mr. Ruef has made a study of bosses, as we each of us make sttfdies of our own kind, artists of other artists, writers of writers, merchants of merchants and ar- tisans of artisans. He says: “In the East the methods of bosses are too brutal.” “They use the whip,” T agree. “It is better to concillate.” “How far,” I want to know, “does the power of the boss extend?’ It seems a tremendous power as I sit there looking on, even through one brief hour. “Only so far as he has the confidence of the people who follow him.” “In what is its strength?” “In giving others what they want for themselves, and not asking anything from them for himself."” “How have you made your following loyal to you?” “I never lie about what I can or can- pot do, and I always do what I can.” We walk out of Mr. Ruef's private of- fice together through a passage of out- stretched hands and detaining appeals. One wise suppliant uses the elevator for an ambush. Three more engage In button-holing in the short passage from elevator to I only organ- street. On the very threshold a man lles in wait with his plea. Half-way across the street a man joins us for a moment. On tlie first corner a small boy bobds up with: “Here's yer evnin’ paper, Mister Ruef,” sinks the half-dollar passed over to him and darts away. A man beckons Mr. Ruef into a drug store for a star chamber conference. “It is never safe to overlook any one,” says Mr. Ruef casually. “You can never tell how a careless slight will be treasured against you." Ten steps from the door another newsboy greets him with, “Was waitin” fer you, Mr. Ruef,” and another even- ing paper goes into his overcoat pocket. From California street to Market the Ruef derby is in the air, the Ruef smile has no chance to rek “I think, that without exaggeration I can say I'know 100,000 people in San Franeisco,” Mr. Ruef explains. a very impor= tant man, a prominent citizen, bends his knee obsequiously and removes his hat with a flourish almdst theatrical “I wish,” sighs Mr. Ruef, “T had some way of keeping my hat going without having to put my hand up every time. My wrist gets tired.” The Call building is in sight and Mr. Ruef sees his car. We shako hands and he swings on. A man comes runping from the sidewall— “Oh, Abe: I say. Abe"— “Al right—so long. I'll be back in ten days” and Mr. Ruef waves a small white hand to the pursuing gen- tleman. I was about to ask before the car and The Call building loomed upon us whers Mes the fun of being a bess, but, on the whole, I think It would have been unnecessary. A man of consequen