Last week Publisher William Randolph Hearst made an announcement in the city where he first began publishing newspapers. He purchased from C. H. Brockhagen the San Francisco Bulletin and merged it with his San Francisco Call-Post. Editor Fremont Older of the Call-Post, 6 ft. 2 in., with a sea-captain's mustache, would continue as editor of the combined newspapers.
Citizens of graftless San Francisco thought back over 25 years, when large in San Francisco's vocabulary was the word Graft, when Fremont Older rose to fame among San Francisco journalists.
One day in 1895 a tall, blustering, hearty man walked into the Bulletin building and announced that he was the new managing editor. Chewing the end of an unlighted cigar, he called into his filthy, paper-littered office all the staff, invited them to put their feet on his desk, talked over with them the prevailing situation.
The situation was worth conversation. As rotten as San Francisco's politics were San Francisco's turn-of-the-century newspapers. To gain an end editors stopped at nothing. A typical incident: at 1 p. m. one day the city editor of William Randolph Hearst's morning Examiner told one of his newssnatchers that R. A. Crothers, owner of the Bulletin, had been attacked as he was emerging from a restaurant. Rushing to the Bulletin, the Examiner reporter learned that Owner Crothers was still in the restaurant, enjoying a good meal, good health. The newsgatherer departed. A few minutes later Mr. Crothers emerged from the restaurant, was set upon, beaten. The clock of the Examiner's city editor had been, it seemed, a little fast.
Editor Older soon discovered that his newspaper was not on the pure list. It was receiving "pay" from railroads. It was receiving money from political parties for candidacy support. But this bothered Editor Older not at all. Graft was running the railroads, governing Labor, 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 that Grafter Calhoun had paid to San Francisco's Board of Supervisors $200,000 for the overhead trolley franchise.