“If you think,” said The Chronicle, on August 17, 1909, “San Francisco is suffering injury from the fruitless effort to obtain convictions in cases in which evidence is lacking, vote the Byron Mauzy ticket. If you believe that the sane thing to do is to cease wasting money over the attempt to accomplish the impossible, vote for candidates who can be depended upon to give the city an administration from which graft will be eliminated in future.”
The platform expressions on the Graft Prosecution issue are interesting. The Republican platform made no reference to it at all. There was some talk of providing that “the District Attorney should do his duty,” but not even this was provided. The Union Labor party plank on this question read as follows:
“We believe in the principle of the equality of all men before the law; that every guilty person should be prosecuted with vigor, in accordance with the law of the land, and that the administration of the law should be free from any and all suspicion of private control. We condemn favoritism or leniency in behalf of any offender before the law, or any compromise with criminals. We demand that any and all offenders be dealt with alike, and to such end we pledge our nominees.”
The Democratic plank alone pledged support to the Graft Prosecution. It read:
“We pledge the Democratic party absolutely and unequivocally to the support of the Graft Prosecution which for three years has valiantly battled for the principle of the equality of all men before the law, which has secured convictions against disheartening odds and has paved the way for the clean administration of public affairs which we now enjoy.
“The people must declare at this critical election for or against municipal corruption; for the enforcement of the law, or for its abandonment; for or against not only a greater but a better San Francisco.
“Francis J. Heney, our candidate for District Attorney, embodies these issues, and we pledge him the vigorous and loyal support of the Democratic party.”
The “hurt business” argument was ably combated by businessmen who were free of the graft mire.