This story begins with the makeup of City politics in 1900. Political corruption was rampant. By paying off City officials, the Barbary Coast[1] brothels and gambling halls continued to exist without harassment or scandal. Additionally, local businesses paid City officials for support in preventing workers from unionizing.
In 1901, things quickly changed. As one successful strike resulted in the unionization of electric workers, others followed. For four months San Francisco was crippled by strikes, leading to escalating violence. In September, a bloody riot and gun battle on Kearney Street left 5 workers dead and 336 others injured. Governor Henry Gage threatened martial law. But other than a few businesses, employers remained non-unionized.
Defeated but not discouraged, 300 delegates from 68 San Francisco unions met and established the Union Labor Party, led by Abraham “Abe” Ruef. Abe Ruef (1864-1936) spent his entire life in San Francisco. He received an undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley and a law degree from Hastings. He was admitted to the California State Bar at age 21. After the formation of the Union Labor Party, Ruef recruited his longtime friend, Eugene Schmitz, to run for mayor. After consulting with a psychic, Schmitz agreed.
Eugene Schmitz (1864-1928), nicknamed “Handsome Gene”, was indeed an exceedingly handsome man, with thick black wavy hair, chiseled features, and a trimmed beard and mustache. He, like Ruef, also spent his entire life in San Francisco. He played the violin and conducted the orchestra at the Columbia Theater on Powell. In 1901 he was president of the Musician’s Union, and this, combined with his good looks, the fact that he was married with two daughters, and his abilities as an orator is why Ruef chose him to run for mayor. Ruef wrote Schmitz’s speeches and managed his campaign. Schmitz won the election by a small margin, making San Francisco the first pro-union-led city in the United States.
It was an open secret that Ruef was the one running the City. All city permits and contracts crossed his desk, and favors were exchanged when businesses put Ruef on “retainer” (he never did any legal work for these establishments). One such example was San Francisco’s French restaurants. They were well-known for serving affordable family dining on the first floor, with brothels located upstairs. In 1904 Schmitz held up the renewal of licenses for these restaurants, including The Poodle Dog[2]. Proprietors were forced to pay thousands in “retainer” fees to Ruef and he later admitted to pocketing half the proceeds and distributing the other half between Schmitz and a few of the Board of Supervisors. Despite this, Schmitz and Ruef remained popular with the working class, and Schmitz was easily reelected in 1903 and 1905.
After the 1905 election, Union Labor Party candidates were elected as Chief of Police, Board of Supervisors and judges. The beginning of Ruef’s demise would turn out to be his appointment of City District Attorney William Langton. Langton was heavily influenced by the new San Francisco reformation movement, led by Fremont Older (editor of the San Francisco Evening Bulletin) and Rudolph Spreckels (millionaire and brother of Adolph Spreckels[3]). In February 1906, Langton initiated raids of local gambling halls that became outraged at having paid retainer fees to Ruef for nothing. Older believed that Langton needed to go further and convinced Spreckels to fund a federal investigation into City corruption. With Spreckels’ money, Older went to Washington D.C. and met with President Theodore Roosevelt, requesting that Washington D.C.’s US District Attorney Francis Heney be loaned to the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office. Roosevelt agreed.
The Graft Trials, as they would come to be known, were a series of trials between 1905-1908 attempting to convict Schmitz, Ruef and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors of bribery and extortion.
Older’s efforts were abruptly put on hold when, on the morning of April 18, 1906, San Francisco was decimated by an earthquake that led to three days of fires[4]. Schmitz was seen as a hero when, to manage the crisis, he called together all the leading business and civic leaders on the day after the earthquake and established The Committee of Fifty. Schmitz did not invite Ruef or any of the Board of Supervisors, though Ruef later invited himself and was not tossed out. Ruef immediately took advantage of the situation, granting United Railroads a lucrative contract for overhead trolley lines in exchange for hefty payments made directly to Ruef.
On October 21, 1906, Langton published a statement saying he was convening a grand jury to look into local government corruption. The next day Ruef ordered the Board of Supervisors to suspend Langton on the grounds of “neglect of office”. Ruef was appointed Langdon’s place. US District Attorney Francis Heney, by this time relocated to the San Francisco office, filed for a temporary restraining order against the appointment. It was quickly granted. On October 26th, with Langton back in office, the grand jury was impaneled at the court’s temporary accommodations at Temple Sherith Israel. After hearing testimony about the French restaurant scandal, the Grand Jury indicted both Ruef and Schmitz.
On March 20, 1907, all members of the Board of Supervisors, in exchange for immunity, testified before a grand jury that they received bribes from Ruef. Ruef was charged with 65 counts of graft and arrested. Two months later he agreed to immunity for the majority of charges against him in exchange for testifying against Schmitz. Almost a year later, as a jury was being selected for Ruef’s trial, a rejected juror shot US District Attorney Heney in the face. Heney survived, but the rejected juror was found dead the next morning with a bullet hole in his forehead. The trial resumed in November 1908 and Ruef was found guilty and sentenced to 14 years in San Quentin. He appealed his conviction, which was ultimately denied, and began serving his sentence in 1911. He was released in 1915 after serving 4 1/2 years.
Schmitz went to trial in the Spring of 1907, with Ruef testifying against him. On June 7th Schmitz was found guilty of extortion and bribery and promptly removed from office. He was sentenced to five years at San Quentin, the maximum sentence the law allowed. He appealed, and in January 1908 the District Court of Appeals nullified the conviction. The California Supreme Court upheld that decision two months later. Four years later Schmitz was tried again, but acquitted when Ruef, already serving his prison sentence, refused to testify, and another key witness fled to Canada. Schmitz ran for Mayor in 1915 and 1919, roundly defeated both times. He was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1921, where he served until 1925.
Ruef was the only one of everyone indicted in the Graft Trials to serve any time. After being released, and no longer able to practice law, Ruef opened a realtor office on the top floor of the Columbus Tower[5] in North Beach[6]. While Ruef was once one of the wealthiest men in San Francisco, he died in bankruptcy at age 72.
[1] Barbary Coast: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=3823
[2] The Poodle Dog: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=4058
[3] Adolph and Alma Spreckels: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=3154
[4] 1906 Earthquake and Fires: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=2849
[5] Columbus Tower: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=4666
[6] North Beach: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=5026
