Word: schmitz
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...electing city officials. Fearless, ambitious, fight-loving, Editor Older set out to purify San Francisco. His great and good friend Rudolph Spreckels, sugar tycoon, agreed to help him. They found lined up against them potent local powers. Patrick Calhoun, hardheaded, two-fisted president of United Railroads; Mayor Eugene E. Schmitz, tall, handsome, the people's idol; Abraham Ruef, a Hebrew Schmitz henchman. "These men are crooks," said Editor Older. "We must prove it," answered Sugarman Spreckels...
Soon their chance came. Patrick Calhoun desired to modernize United Railroads' ramshackle Sutter Street car line, and to do so he decided to construct an overhead trolley system. Sugarman Spreckels, with an eye to a more beautiful San Francisco, objected. 'He called on Mayor Schmitz, proposed a modern underground conduit system, went so far as to offer to pay the extra expense himself. Mayor Schmitz laughed him out of the City Hall. Suspicious, Messrs. Older and Spreckels prevailed upon President Roosevelt to "lend" them famed Detective William John Burns and Lawyer Francis Joseph Heney, to conduct an investigation. They discovered...
Thus armed, Editor Older opened fire. In every Bulletin appeared blaring headlines, sensational stories on Graft. In every editorial Editor Older flayed Grafters Schmitz and Ruef...
...pains, Editor Older became an unpopular figure. San Franciscans admired Patrick Calhoun, respected Mayor Schmitz. Editor Older was dropped from his clubs. His friends ostracized him. He lived in seclusion with his wife, ate his meals at a seaside "dog wagon," for exercise swam off a lonely beach. Once he was saved from gunmen only through the diligence of private detectives. Another time his home was almost bombed. Once he was kidnaped, taken by train to another city, saved by an unknown friend who wired ahead to authorities. "That story," boasts Editor Older, "went around the world...
...entirely satisfying was victory to Editor Older. The jury disagreed on Grafter Calhouri and his case was dismissed. Mayor Schmitz was never brought to trial. Only Abraham Ruef was convicted, sent to San Quentin for 14 years. Peculiarly enough, the sentence of Ruef was more sorrowful to Editor Older than his failure to convict the others. Always an intense reader, he became at about this time a Tolstoyan humanist. He started writing fiercely uplifting editorials asking for-and obtaining-Ruef's parole. Explaining it, he says...