Partridge had a clear field against Schmitz, but his candidacy failed to carry the confidence, or to awake the enthusiasm which brings success at the polls.
The Union-Labor administration was openly denounced as corrupt. Francis J. Heney,[12] fresh from his success in prosecuting the Oregon land fraud cases, went so far as to declare in a speech before one of the largest political gatherings ever assembled in San Francisco that he knew Ruef to be corrupt,[13] and, given opportunity, could prove it.
The public generally believed Heney’s charges to be justified. But of approximately 98,000 registered voters only 68,878 voted for Mayor, and of these, 40,191 voted for Schmitz. Partridge received only 28,687[14] votes, being defeated by a majority of 11,504.
Not only was Schmitz re-elected by overwhelming majority, but the entire Ruef-selected Union-Labor party ticket was elected with him.
Ruef, as Mayor Schmitz’s recognized political adviser, and political agent for the Union-Labor party, found himself in control of every branch and department of the San Francisco municipal government.
CHAPTER II.
The Ruef Board of Supervisors.
No observer of San Francisco politics, not even Ruef himself, had expected the entire Union-Labor party ticket to be elected. The election of the Supervisors was the greatest surprise of all. Ruef, with his political intimates, had selected the Supervisorial candidates, but more with a view to hold the organized labor vote for Schmitz than with idea of the fitness of the candidates for the duties involved in managing the affairs of a municipality of 500,000 population.[15] Not one of the eighteen elected was a man of strong character.[16] Several were of fair, but by no means exceptional ability. Of this type were Gallagher, an attorney of some prominence who acted as go-between between Ruef and the Supervisors; Wilson, who was a sort of second man to Gallagher, and Boxton, a dentist.
But for the most part they were men who had led uneventful lives as drivers of delivery wagons, bartenders and clerks. Without an exception, they saw in their unexpected elevation to the Board of Supervisors opportunity to better their condition. Some of them would not, perhaps, have sought bribes; few of them knew just how they could employ their office to their best advantage; but from the hour of their election the idea of personal advancement was uppermost in the minds of the majority of the members of the Schmitz-Ruef Board of Supervisors.[17] Their ignorance of the requirements of their office, their failure to appreciate their large responsibilities, and above all their ill-defined ambitions made them promise of easy prey for the agents of the public-service corporations, who were playing for special privileges worth millions.