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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.
For his 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."
People gradually came to believe there was basis for the Bulletin's graft charges. Finally evidence was placed before a Grand Jury. A lawyer named Hiram Warren Johnson took up the prosecution and by it came to fame. Bribery was proved, the courts acted, San Francisco's graft days were over.
Not 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:
". . . I was vindictive, unscrupulous, savage. . . . Then I said to myself, 'You've got him . . . you've won. How do you like your victory?' . . . Well, my soul revolted. I thought over my life, the many unworthy things I have done to others, the injustice, the wrongs I have been guilty of, the human hearts I have wantonly hurt. ... If society will let me, I want to unlock that barred door and for the rest of my life try to get nearer the spirit of Christ."
"To the well-to-do," writes Editor Oswald Garrison Villard of the pinko- liberal Nation, "contented and privileged, Older is an anathema. They not only hate, fear and distrust him, they honor him by their disbelief in his sincerity and honesty. To them 'the friend of crooks' is as good as a crook himself. . . . But his friends see in Fremont Older a journalistic knight-errant of superb power, who can never be made to know that he is beaten when it comes to a straight-put fight."